Dir. Cristian Mungiu
2007
9.1
As I was watching Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days I had a strange thought. I say strange because while the film's central premise is illegal abortion the thought that came to me was about modernity. Modernity is the great rupture of beauty. It is the corrosion of the natural in favor of the grotesque. Where the Romans and Greeks ecstatically sought the perfection of aesthetics, we can only feel stifled by it. Something truly miraculous happened well before the 20th century and although no one has ever seemed to completely define what it was, we are hard pressed to outlive it. If I had to guess as to why this thought came in connection with watching 4 Months, it's probably because abortion and all the degradation, politics and catharsis that comes with it feels like a pinnacle of modernity: the destruction of life. It is the utterly devastating realization that there are far too many reasons not to bring a life into the world, both private and public. Unlike the slew of birth comedies that have come out in the past few years (Knocked Up, Juno, etc.) which utilized bias and irrationality (“It has finger nails”) to justify the trauma of giving birth under less than ideal, or simply unthinkable circumstances, 4 Months takes a provocative and deeply controversial issue, puts into a foreign but even more upsetting environment (1980s Romania) and comes out refreshing and brilliant. If one fails to see the film as a tribute to the aching pains of modern life, the effect of the film would seem paradoxical. However, in opposing conventions and making a film that is stirring and aggressively human, Mungiu manages to make a film that is not about abortion at all but rather about life.
Abortion is such a heated issue that I always figured that a film about it would be a totally transparent political film with super-imposed morality. 4 Months begins in the most auspicious and promiscuous of institutions: college. We are introduced to our principle characters who come to represent a sort of cerebral dichotomy. Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) is a gruffly independent country girl who becomes an obscure mother figure to Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) after Gabita becomes pregnant and decides she wants to get an abortion which is illegal in their home country of Romania. Otilia is well versed in bribery, bartering and lying. However, for her, it must be premeditated. She has to know what she is getting herself into. Gabita lies out of an instinctual and naïve desire to protect and shelter herself and others, but ends up failing because of her inability to tolerate the contradiction inherent in lying (going against morality) to save (going with morality). The two eventually meet an illegal surgeon who, after giving them a hard time about money and breaking his rigid guidelines, performs the operation. It is here that the film tenses up, as if all its muscles contracted. There is a touching fragility between Gabita and Otilia, the kind that only comes from a relationship where one person is in a state of total helplessness and the other a position to criticize and condescend. The film's completely digetic soundtrack adds a painful clarity to the strained relationship between the two girls. Documentary style long takes, reminiscent of Alfonso Cuaron's Y Tu Mama Tambien and Children of Men capture the intimacy of disdain and repentance. The moments in which nothing is said are some of the hardest to bear, especially a long sequence directly after Mr. Bebe, the surgeon, has implanted the abortive probe and left. Gabita lays barely covered on the bed, with a deeply distressed yet almost slightly relieved look on her face. After several moments of silence she whispers “Thanks” to Otilia. It is truly one of the most obliterating moments in the entire film. Sadness is rarely so eloquent as this.
The rest of the film is mostly nomadic, with a literal take on the twists and turns of the mind as it decides what to do in the wake of an event that is nearly impossible to grasp in its entirety. It's perhaps more nerve racking and less contemplative than it should have been, but chalk that up to the assumption that the audience probably needed a breather after a brutally long take of the unborn fetus lying on the bathroom floor of a cheap hotel. Nothing about the film's vision of humanity is glorious or inspiring. The girls are deeply affected but the end of the film finds them agreeing to never talk about what happened. The focus in 4 Months is on the great burden of life not only in places like Romania but here at home as well. Not to suggest that life was any easier centuries or millenia ago, but since having lost a fair amount of necessity and gained a heaping portion of luxury and distraction, humanity has also been charged with justifying itself. It is not a responsibility we take to happily. To truly understand humanity one must not be afraid of even the most deplorable acts, and must be ready to have any and all convictions torn down and replaced by insecurity and contempt. We cannot find who we are simply by looking on the bright, satisfying side of things. Truer still, we will not discover anything by probing the depths of despair either. Modernity is the accepting of the horrible and ugly as relatives to the beautiful and the perfect. It is the realization that death can bring a truly greater understanding of and appreciate for life. 4 Months succeeds exactly where it should: in de-politicizing and thus de-dichotomizing the heated and relentless issue of living.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Revolutionary Road
Dir. Sam Mendes
2008
4.5
As everyone probably knows by now Sam Mendes is married to Kate Winslet. They are not exactly the stereotypical Hollywood couple. Mendes has four films under his belt but his status as a director has been somewhat depreciating since his debut film American Beauty. Winslet is the the chronic underdog of Hollywood with a number of fine performances under her belt and a reputation as a solid, sensual actress, but has been consistently denied Hollywood's “highest honor”: an Academy Award. It seems that these “but” laden post-scripts are what's standing in the way of either Winslet or Mendes becoming a breakthrough, although both have been highly celebrated in more minor, but perhaps also more well-refined, film circles. So it kind of fits that Mendes most recent film, Revolutionary Road, which stars Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio as the misfit couple Frank and April Wheeler, is a disappointment. After being denied access to more conventional appreciation (ie. the masses) Mendes turned to more orthodox subject matter and cast Winslet in hopes that the double achievement of popularity and critical acclaim might be attained for both himself and her. Unfortunately what happened instead was that he made a film void of any standout features. The widely recognized faces of Dicaprio and Winslet (“Together Again!” ran headlines after the announcement of Mendes new film) ended up working against him, not just because so many were hoping that Revolutionary Road would be an epic romance comparable to Titanic. Both Winslet and Dicaprio are noteworthy character actors, but without dimensional, yet malleable, characters even the greatest character actor is bound to falter. Revolutionary Road fails because it is not sure, and thus its characters and actors are not sure either, what exactly it is trying to say. It lacks the audacity to be bold and surrenders to pondering and compulsively exploding at all the wrong times.
Revolutionary Road embodies a growing trend in Hollywood since the turn of the century: divulge the 1950s. Though Mendes set design and appropriation of the time is adequate he renders the 50s in a way that further mystifies rather than clearing up. Unlike Mad Men or Far From Heaven which capture the false sincerity and strident dedication to normalcy, Mendes erects an abysmally obvious artificial insecurity. April and Frank are not a happy couple. They decide that moving to Paris will solve all their problems (Europe is tres chic). Thus begins a theme of secondary or alternative lifestyle that pervades the film but is never dealt with head on. Middle America is boring and confining and Europe is mysterious and appealing; a place where a person can really "discover who they are”. This mindset, although it is absent of rationality, is not uncommon but the reasoning behind it is as flimsy and two dimensional as the reason for placing the film in the 50s. The idea is to make everything seem edgier. Frank and April laugh at their neighbor's shocked reactions to their moving announcement, and find the mentally deranged son of their landlady very agreeable for his outsider's view of the world. That is of course until everything goes to Hell. Frank is tempted into staying at his job. April has several mental breakdowns, makes love to her neighbor, and all the while is contemplating aborting the baby she and Frank made together in a moment of unrefined and unbelievable passion. We're supposed to be shocked at the behavior of two people in a generation known for its conservative, patriotic and straight laced mannerisms. That idea, however, has long since been rebuked, and Mendes motifs of insecurity, specialty as dressed up simplicity and an abstention for the commonplace all feel rather trite. Adding to the limited conviction inherent in the film is how awkward a couple Dicaprio and Winslet are. It's almost as if they are trapped inside a bag of indefinite size and are simply groping around, sometimes frantically, sometimes apathetically. Be it poor pacing on the part of screen writer Justin Haythe or perhaps just a confounding circumstance that never seems to go in the direction you think it's going to (in this case that is a bad thing), any connection between the two characters seems entirely forced. Even in the relatively few moments where the film achieves tenderness or some kind of authentic emotion, the two fall quickly back into their real roles as big name stars in a film that doesn't adequately live up to their respective talents.
In a way, Mendes seems to have inadvertently assumed a directorial role equivalent to the social position of the Wheelers. Frank and April are entirely convinced of their originality; so full of false modesty and sentiments, and yet so utterly incapable of being anything other than melodramatic. Similarly Mendes seems to be attempting to make a film that is simple, viable and passable, but fails because of an earnest belief that Revolutionary Road is something terrific and praiseworthy. While Revolutionary Road is not a complete failure, its redeeming qualities, particularly the portion of the film that takes place after April's botched bathroom abortion, cannot do anything to overpower the overwhelming feeling of a film that is entirely forgettable. In the end I feel exactly the same way April and Frank's neighbor, Shep, feels when he says “I don't want to talk about the Wheelers anymore.”
2008
4.5
As everyone probably knows by now Sam Mendes is married to Kate Winslet. They are not exactly the stereotypical Hollywood couple. Mendes has four films under his belt but his status as a director has been somewhat depreciating since his debut film American Beauty. Winslet is the the chronic underdog of Hollywood with a number of fine performances under her belt and a reputation as a solid, sensual actress, but has been consistently denied Hollywood's “highest honor”: an Academy Award. It seems that these “but” laden post-scripts are what's standing in the way of either Winslet or Mendes becoming a breakthrough, although both have been highly celebrated in more minor, but perhaps also more well-refined, film circles. So it kind of fits that Mendes most recent film, Revolutionary Road, which stars Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio as the misfit couple Frank and April Wheeler, is a disappointment. After being denied access to more conventional appreciation (ie. the masses) Mendes turned to more orthodox subject matter and cast Winslet in hopes that the double achievement of popularity and critical acclaim might be attained for both himself and her. Unfortunately what happened instead was that he made a film void of any standout features. The widely recognized faces of Dicaprio and Winslet (“Together Again!” ran headlines after the announcement of Mendes new film) ended up working against him, not just because so many were hoping that Revolutionary Road would be an epic romance comparable to Titanic. Both Winslet and Dicaprio are noteworthy character actors, but without dimensional, yet malleable, characters even the greatest character actor is bound to falter. Revolutionary Road fails because it is not sure, and thus its characters and actors are not sure either, what exactly it is trying to say. It lacks the audacity to be bold and surrenders to pondering and compulsively exploding at all the wrong times.
Revolutionary Road embodies a growing trend in Hollywood since the turn of the century: divulge the 1950s. Though Mendes set design and appropriation of the time is adequate he renders the 50s in a way that further mystifies rather than clearing up. Unlike Mad Men or Far From Heaven which capture the false sincerity and strident dedication to normalcy, Mendes erects an abysmally obvious artificial insecurity. April and Frank are not a happy couple. They decide that moving to Paris will solve all their problems (Europe is tres chic). Thus begins a theme of secondary or alternative lifestyle that pervades the film but is never dealt with head on. Middle America is boring and confining and Europe is mysterious and appealing; a place where a person can really "discover who they are”. This mindset, although it is absent of rationality, is not uncommon but the reasoning behind it is as flimsy and two dimensional as the reason for placing the film in the 50s. The idea is to make everything seem edgier. Frank and April laugh at their neighbor's shocked reactions to their moving announcement, and find the mentally deranged son of their landlady very agreeable for his outsider's view of the world. That is of course until everything goes to Hell. Frank is tempted into staying at his job. April has several mental breakdowns, makes love to her neighbor, and all the while is contemplating aborting the baby she and Frank made together in a moment of unrefined and unbelievable passion. We're supposed to be shocked at the behavior of two people in a generation known for its conservative, patriotic and straight laced mannerisms. That idea, however, has long since been rebuked, and Mendes motifs of insecurity, specialty as dressed up simplicity and an abstention for the commonplace all feel rather trite. Adding to the limited conviction inherent in the film is how awkward a couple Dicaprio and Winslet are. It's almost as if they are trapped inside a bag of indefinite size and are simply groping around, sometimes frantically, sometimes apathetically. Be it poor pacing on the part of screen writer Justin Haythe or perhaps just a confounding circumstance that never seems to go in the direction you think it's going to (in this case that is a bad thing), any connection between the two characters seems entirely forced. Even in the relatively few moments where the film achieves tenderness or some kind of authentic emotion, the two fall quickly back into their real roles as big name stars in a film that doesn't adequately live up to their respective talents.
In a way, Mendes seems to have inadvertently assumed a directorial role equivalent to the social position of the Wheelers. Frank and April are entirely convinced of their originality; so full of false modesty and sentiments, and yet so utterly incapable of being anything other than melodramatic. Similarly Mendes seems to be attempting to make a film that is simple, viable and passable, but fails because of an earnest belief that Revolutionary Road is something terrific and praiseworthy. While Revolutionary Road is not a complete failure, its redeeming qualities, particularly the portion of the film that takes place after April's botched bathroom abortion, cannot do anything to overpower the overwhelming feeling of a film that is entirely forgettable. In the end I feel exactly the same way April and Frank's neighbor, Shep, feels when he says “I don't want to talk about the Wheelers anymore.”
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Ugetsu
Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi
1953
n/a
There is a line in the beginning of Ugetsu which resonates rather profoundly in 2009 although the film was released in 1953 and takes place in 16th century Japan: “Quick money made in chaotic times never lasts”. In an age of subprime mortgages, billion dollar Ponzi schemes, and worldwide economic strife the words intoned by a small village's chief are more than relevant. The maddening pursuit of money has a tendency to turn inwards on itself, and where once a few thousand may have sufficed, now millions are unable to satiate. Where there is will and desire there is a distinct ability to overturn reason. Even if a person has the instinctive knowledge to know that revenue cannot be equated with happiness or satisfaction, the addictive quality of earnings is a dreadfully powerful force, one which can capsize even the most sound advice in favor of potential affluence. Ugetsu is a lesson on the corruptive forces of quick, easy material gains and what is forsaken in their pursuit.
Ugetsu, which is based on a series of nine stories written by Ueda Akinari in the late 18th century, reminded me of a similar sort of fictional tale that took place on the other side of the world during the 19th century: Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. I could not help but think of Wemmick's advice to young Pip in regards to the absolute necessity of “portable property” in scenes where main characters Genjuro (Masayuki Mori) and Tobei (Eitaro Ozawa) are transporting Genjuro's collection of pottery to the nearby towns. After being run out of their village by a belligerent faction of warriors (the country is engaged in civil war), the two, their wives, Miyagi (Machiko Kyo) is Genjuro's and Ohama (Mitsuko Mito) is Tobei's, and Genjuro and Miyagi's son flee towards the nearby city of Nagahama by boat. Despite the madness and threat of death, Genjuro insists on salvaging his huge supply of pottery which he still plans to sell in Nagahama. His fiscal dehydration grows the more he drinks of its intoxicating cup, and upon arriving in Nagahama, after leaving his wife and child along the shore (the group is warned of pirates along the lake, and he decides it's not safe for them), he finds his wares popular among the town's people. Among those who seek his distinguished crafts is a mysterious woman and her nurse. As Tobei flees to achieve his goal of becoming a samurai, Genjuro is invited to a decrepit and haunting mansion where the woman, who is revealed to be Lady Wasaka (Machiko Kyo), the last of a noble family, lives in relative seclusion. The respective stories of Tobei, Genjuro, and Ohama begin to spiral desperately out of control. Ohama, abandoned by her crazed husband and left to wander, is raped by soldiers and later turns to prostitution as a means of making a living. Tobei becomes a respected officer in the army, but is stunned when he meets his wife again and sees the state to which she has fallen into. Genjuro's story is annihilating. He discovers that Lady Wasaka is a spirit, a temptress, who wishes for him to join her in eternal union. He flees her and, believing that he has come to his senses, returns to his village where he finds his wife and son alive and in one peace; thrilled to see him home safe. He falls into a sake-induced sleep and is awoken by the village chief. Looking about for his wife the chief reveals that she has died some time ago. This final apparition has destroyed his madness but in doing so have also destroyed him as well. Both he and Tobei renounce their delirium and return to their former back breaking labors. The film is marked by an overwhelming feeling of lessons learned through great tragedy.
In Great Expectations Pip, after the identity of his benefactor is revealed and he finds said person to be quite below his 'expectations', is eventually deprived of his riches and easy lifestyle of debt and high society and forced, not quite unhappily, to return to the simpler ways of his childhood. It is largely about appreciating what is of real value, which is often intangible. As goes Richie Rich (remember that one), so to does Ugetsu show that the promise and eventual payment of capital never entirely satisfies a longing for something more. Often times this appetence is concealed by a greater acquisition of wealth, but it never entirely goes away. The film exposes the iniquity of all those who, in pursuit of a ghostly vision of prosperity, debase their loved ones and abandon everything they have worked to achieve. In that respect the film is almost comic. However, the stirring sequences towards the end of the film depicting the various characters coming to grips with their reality hamper this black humor. Along the way, unlike Pip, they didn't develop any great disdain for poverty, but rather tried hard to outrun or forget their past and imagine themselves as having been born into lives of fame and riches. They are crushed by their inability to escape and, rather than continue fighting, surrender to its ruthlessness. The effect is quite sobering, like kicking an addiction, but the end result is a clarity which they would not have otherwise been able to achieve. Despite being dead the film's closing monologue by the spirit of Genjuro's wife suggests that she is happy that Genjuro has come to his senses, although she only wishes she could be there to share this newfound peace with him. “Thus is the way of the world,” her phantom voice proclaims. When coping with painful reality, especially when it comes at a great monetary, psychological or physical loss, this outlook is perhaps the only one that makes sense.
1953
n/a
There is a line in the beginning of Ugetsu which resonates rather profoundly in 2009 although the film was released in 1953 and takes place in 16th century Japan: “Quick money made in chaotic times never lasts”. In an age of subprime mortgages, billion dollar Ponzi schemes, and worldwide economic strife the words intoned by a small village's chief are more than relevant. The maddening pursuit of money has a tendency to turn inwards on itself, and where once a few thousand may have sufficed, now millions are unable to satiate. Where there is will and desire there is a distinct ability to overturn reason. Even if a person has the instinctive knowledge to know that revenue cannot be equated with happiness or satisfaction, the addictive quality of earnings is a dreadfully powerful force, one which can capsize even the most sound advice in favor of potential affluence. Ugetsu is a lesson on the corruptive forces of quick, easy material gains and what is forsaken in their pursuit.
Ugetsu, which is based on a series of nine stories written by Ueda Akinari in the late 18th century, reminded me of a similar sort of fictional tale that took place on the other side of the world during the 19th century: Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. I could not help but think of Wemmick's advice to young Pip in regards to the absolute necessity of “portable property” in scenes where main characters Genjuro (Masayuki Mori) and Tobei (Eitaro Ozawa) are transporting Genjuro's collection of pottery to the nearby towns. After being run out of their village by a belligerent faction of warriors (the country is engaged in civil war), the two, their wives, Miyagi (Machiko Kyo) is Genjuro's and Ohama (Mitsuko Mito) is Tobei's, and Genjuro and Miyagi's son flee towards the nearby city of Nagahama by boat. Despite the madness and threat of death, Genjuro insists on salvaging his huge supply of pottery which he still plans to sell in Nagahama. His fiscal dehydration grows the more he drinks of its intoxicating cup, and upon arriving in Nagahama, after leaving his wife and child along the shore (the group is warned of pirates along the lake, and he decides it's not safe for them), he finds his wares popular among the town's people. Among those who seek his distinguished crafts is a mysterious woman and her nurse. As Tobei flees to achieve his goal of becoming a samurai, Genjuro is invited to a decrepit and haunting mansion where the woman, who is revealed to be Lady Wasaka (Machiko Kyo), the last of a noble family, lives in relative seclusion. The respective stories of Tobei, Genjuro, and Ohama begin to spiral desperately out of control. Ohama, abandoned by her crazed husband and left to wander, is raped by soldiers and later turns to prostitution as a means of making a living. Tobei becomes a respected officer in the army, but is stunned when he meets his wife again and sees the state to which she has fallen into. Genjuro's story is annihilating. He discovers that Lady Wasaka is a spirit, a temptress, who wishes for him to join her in eternal union. He flees her and, believing that he has come to his senses, returns to his village where he finds his wife and son alive and in one peace; thrilled to see him home safe. He falls into a sake-induced sleep and is awoken by the village chief. Looking about for his wife the chief reveals that she has died some time ago. This final apparition has destroyed his madness but in doing so have also destroyed him as well. Both he and Tobei renounce their delirium and return to their former back breaking labors. The film is marked by an overwhelming feeling of lessons learned through great tragedy.
In Great Expectations Pip, after the identity of his benefactor is revealed and he finds said person to be quite below his 'expectations', is eventually deprived of his riches and easy lifestyle of debt and high society and forced, not quite unhappily, to return to the simpler ways of his childhood. It is largely about appreciating what is of real value, which is often intangible. As goes Richie Rich (remember that one), so to does Ugetsu show that the promise and eventual payment of capital never entirely satisfies a longing for something more. Often times this appetence is concealed by a greater acquisition of wealth, but it never entirely goes away. The film exposes the iniquity of all those who, in pursuit of a ghostly vision of prosperity, debase their loved ones and abandon everything they have worked to achieve. In that respect the film is almost comic. However, the stirring sequences towards the end of the film depicting the various characters coming to grips with their reality hamper this black humor. Along the way, unlike Pip, they didn't develop any great disdain for poverty, but rather tried hard to outrun or forget their past and imagine themselves as having been born into lives of fame and riches. They are crushed by their inability to escape and, rather than continue fighting, surrender to its ruthlessness. The effect is quite sobering, like kicking an addiction, but the end result is a clarity which they would not have otherwise been able to achieve. Despite being dead the film's closing monologue by the spirit of Genjuro's wife suggests that she is happy that Genjuro has come to his senses, although she only wishes she could be there to share this newfound peace with him. “Thus is the way of the world,” her phantom voice proclaims. When coping with painful reality, especially when it comes at a great monetary, psychological or physical loss, this outlook is perhaps the only one that makes sense.
M
Dir. Fritz Lang
1931
n/a
Over the course of time repetitious opinions, actions and thoughts slowly develop into a sturdy and sometimes obstinate system of beliefs. From these convictions arise momentary conflicts of interest generally extending from questions of morality, justice and other abstract but highly debatable subject matter. It is these subjects that shed light on the falsely assumed objectivity of belief systems and how they are actually designed to suit a purpose: simplify. If a figure of authority can directly say “this is right and that is wrong” than the whole problem of deciphering the mentality that allows say, a premeditated murder to be punished and a “crime of passion” to go unpunished, is solved. Justice and the like take on a coldly mathematical logic. However, what is really occurring in such a scenario is the neglecting of idiosyncrasies in favor of a highly relative and questionable system of equity. In terms of crime and punishment Fritz Lang's historic M unearthed a terrifying and blatant discrepancy: passion is far too often equated with injustice. This fundamental theory extends not just to realm of criminality but also to the law. When dealing with 'crimes of passion', 'uncontrollable impulses' or any matter pertaining to justice, it is paramount that both impulse and passion be abandoned in the name of integrity and truth.
Before Little Children, Silence of the Lambs, Night of the Hunter, and so many other dramas took on the mysterious and taboo subject of pathological murders, Fritz Lang designed a complex and riveting film about this same psychological addiction. Based on a German child murder from the 1920s, M begins as a prerequisite to Hollywood's addictive film noir, with intrigue and mysterious, forbidden lust. It unfurls with focused constraint as tension and panic sweeps over a city in the height of fear over what might now be called 'homeland security'. Lang unveils, occasionally with uncomfortable but revelatory levels of social satire, the suspicion and paranoia of a city in the throws of psychological insecurity. Although the police do their best, and also in private moments outline the hopelessness of their cause, they are unable to boil down the thousands of leads (most of them insanely vague accusations from one neighbor against another) into any sustainable evidence. A group of local mobsters decide to take matters into their own hands and organize the Union of Beggars to keep a watch over the city (note: because they have nothing better to do, right?). The Murderer (Peter Lorre) is eventually cornered by the mob and forced into a Kafkaesque trial in which his sentence is essentially already known. He begs the jury, who are actually a horde of lawless, hypocritical bigots, to comprehend that it is his internal demons that cause him to kill; that he does not want to, but he must. Although it almost appears that a few of the hundreds in attendance at this most theatrical of trials believe and pity him, the rest want to see him torn to shreds. He is rescued in a moment of Biblical divinity by the police who escort him to his lawful trial where it is assumed he is placed in an asylum until he can be “cured”.
When it comes to films about pathological murderers, a good many of them often eschew answering the difficult question of what makes a killer kill in favor of suspense and drama. Whether it's because the writers don't have the capacity to articulate the root of the illness or more likely that their assumed audience will be bored by psychological theorizing, the daunting question is elided from the plot with relative ease. In M the question is not ignored and it is in the Murderer's confession that he seeks to convey the depths of his affliction and his powerlessness, not only to his 'jury' but to us as well. There is no doubt that this sort of first person view of something so terribly anathematic, in the eyes of our worldly culture, is both fascinating and disturbing. We want so badly to understand, but at the same time an understanding complicates our need for cut and dry justice. Crime and equivocal punishment. As much as we find the susceptibility to mental disease in others tantalizing we'd ultimately rather have a proclamation of guilt or innocence to sooth our mind rather than irritate it with unending questions, and concerns over the 'correct' (that is, morally acceptable) thing being done.
It is the film's final sequence where the two trials (the unlawful and the lawful, which Lang compares throughout the film, both cinematically and philosophically) are seen for their stark contrasts, that I am painfully reminded of trials I have seen on television in the last few years. Homicide or manslaughter trial coverage almost inevitably includes the closing statements made not only by the lawyers but by the family of the deceased as well. They are almost always emotionally charged accusations that have little or no bearing on the case at hand. In an unprofessional and grossly upsetting means of compensation, the family members are given their few minutes to charge the defendant with the crimes he most certainly has already been acquitted or condemned of. What's sad is how these moments end up having the greatest effect on public opinion. In the face of iniquity a great many more crimes of injustice may be committed. No one should be deprived of their right to grieve, but when that grief is misused as a pulpit then the real tragedy has occurred. The last moment of the film shows a weeping mother, still beside herself with anguish saying “This will not bring our children back”. It is in this profound statement that the paradox of murder trials can be found: neither death, nor life imprisonment, nor institutionalization can bring back the dearly departed. Justice is almost never simple, but in grasping its subjectivity we might discover that an unflinching claim for retribution might be a pathology all its own.
1931
n/a
Over the course of time repetitious opinions, actions and thoughts slowly develop into a sturdy and sometimes obstinate system of beliefs. From these convictions arise momentary conflicts of interest generally extending from questions of morality, justice and other abstract but highly debatable subject matter. It is these subjects that shed light on the falsely assumed objectivity of belief systems and how they are actually designed to suit a purpose: simplify. If a figure of authority can directly say “this is right and that is wrong” than the whole problem of deciphering the mentality that allows say, a premeditated murder to be punished and a “crime of passion” to go unpunished, is solved. Justice and the like take on a coldly mathematical logic. However, what is really occurring in such a scenario is the neglecting of idiosyncrasies in favor of a highly relative and questionable system of equity. In terms of crime and punishment Fritz Lang's historic M unearthed a terrifying and blatant discrepancy: passion is far too often equated with injustice. This fundamental theory extends not just to realm of criminality but also to the law. When dealing with 'crimes of passion', 'uncontrollable impulses' or any matter pertaining to justice, it is paramount that both impulse and passion be abandoned in the name of integrity and truth.
Before Little Children, Silence of the Lambs, Night of the Hunter, and so many other dramas took on the mysterious and taboo subject of pathological murders, Fritz Lang designed a complex and riveting film about this same psychological addiction. Based on a German child murder from the 1920s, M begins as a prerequisite to Hollywood's addictive film noir, with intrigue and mysterious, forbidden lust. It unfurls with focused constraint as tension and panic sweeps over a city in the height of fear over what might now be called 'homeland security'. Lang unveils, occasionally with uncomfortable but revelatory levels of social satire, the suspicion and paranoia of a city in the throws of psychological insecurity. Although the police do their best, and also in private moments outline the hopelessness of their cause, they are unable to boil down the thousands of leads (most of them insanely vague accusations from one neighbor against another) into any sustainable evidence. A group of local mobsters decide to take matters into their own hands and organize the Union of Beggars to keep a watch over the city (note: because they have nothing better to do, right?). The Murderer (Peter Lorre) is eventually cornered by the mob and forced into a Kafkaesque trial in which his sentence is essentially already known. He begs the jury, who are actually a horde of lawless, hypocritical bigots, to comprehend that it is his internal demons that cause him to kill; that he does not want to, but he must. Although it almost appears that a few of the hundreds in attendance at this most theatrical of trials believe and pity him, the rest want to see him torn to shreds. He is rescued in a moment of Biblical divinity by the police who escort him to his lawful trial where it is assumed he is placed in an asylum until he can be “cured”.
When it comes to films about pathological murderers, a good many of them often eschew answering the difficult question of what makes a killer kill in favor of suspense and drama. Whether it's because the writers don't have the capacity to articulate the root of the illness or more likely that their assumed audience will be bored by psychological theorizing, the daunting question is elided from the plot with relative ease. In M the question is not ignored and it is in the Murderer's confession that he seeks to convey the depths of his affliction and his powerlessness, not only to his 'jury' but to us as well. There is no doubt that this sort of first person view of something so terribly anathematic, in the eyes of our worldly culture, is both fascinating and disturbing. We want so badly to understand, but at the same time an understanding complicates our need for cut and dry justice. Crime and equivocal punishment. As much as we find the susceptibility to mental disease in others tantalizing we'd ultimately rather have a proclamation of guilt or innocence to sooth our mind rather than irritate it with unending questions, and concerns over the 'correct' (that is, morally acceptable) thing being done.
It is the film's final sequence where the two trials (the unlawful and the lawful, which Lang compares throughout the film, both cinematically and philosophically) are seen for their stark contrasts, that I am painfully reminded of trials I have seen on television in the last few years. Homicide or manslaughter trial coverage almost inevitably includes the closing statements made not only by the lawyers but by the family of the deceased as well. They are almost always emotionally charged accusations that have little or no bearing on the case at hand. In an unprofessional and grossly upsetting means of compensation, the family members are given their few minutes to charge the defendant with the crimes he most certainly has already been acquitted or condemned of. What's sad is how these moments end up having the greatest effect on public opinion. In the face of iniquity a great many more crimes of injustice may be committed. No one should be deprived of their right to grieve, but when that grief is misused as a pulpit then the real tragedy has occurred. The last moment of the film shows a weeping mother, still beside herself with anguish saying “This will not bring our children back”. It is in this profound statement that the paradox of murder trials can be found: neither death, nor life imprisonment, nor institutionalization can bring back the dearly departed. Justice is almost never simple, but in grasping its subjectivity we might discover that an unflinching claim for retribution might be a pathology all its own.
2046
Dir. Wong Kar-Wai
2004
9.5
For all its cyclical and arc-like possibilities life has a sour tendency of being cut and divided into rations. Each are meant to be savored but inevitably they are gobbled down and compared quite frankly to previous portions and the hopes of future servings. Once consumed they are gone for good but this reality some how does not keep us from wishing against all odds that we might someday taste that same enriching fare. The memory of its consistencies, textures and flavors haunts us. At times even the thought that the true feast is right around the corner, the one that will make all others seem like mere nibblings and hors d'oeuvres, cannot keep us from wanting a former piece so badly that we turn instead to the dark and lonesome corners of starvation in the vain hope that the absence of nourishment might help us forget our very fundamental need of it. Segmentation has become an unnatural but nonetheless accepted part of life. Art, the painfully accurate reflection of life, has developed the capacity to emulate this tendency. In Wong Kar-wai's 2046 the theme of compartmentalization is adapted to a stunning and sometimes perplexing visual realization. Engaging in aspects of romance, high-drama, and science fiction the film weaves together a complex tapestry of love, regret, and memory. The end result is both stupefying and astoundingly gorgeous.
Based loosely on themes and plots from two previous films by Kar-wai (Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love), 2046 can be jarring without proper appropriation of certain material from the two aforementioned films. Still, the core of the film is not strictly reliant on this knowledge, but rather it assists in contextualizing the film. The story is based on a few years in a man's life, Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), and his encounters with people, mostly women, during those times. Chow has recently loved and lost and throughout the film he finds pieces of his lost love in his new romances. However, he has refused to have his heart broken again and has thus built a towering, nearly impenetrable wall around himself to keep passion out and his insecurities in. In doing so he has unwittingly secured his inability to cope with his own devastation and move forward in his life. The film's plot line is highly reflective of this, with jumps in time that are confounding but revealing as Chow relives moments, seemingly without meaning to, that he has refused to completely release. To add to the greater sense of disorientation the film also encompasses a fictional, futuristic dream-world known as '2046', where “nothing ever changes”. These escapades are both an enigmatic and cryptic rendering of Chow's detachment from reality (scenes from '2046' exclusively feature the characters from the linear portion of the film in largely metaphoric roles) as well as the basis for a science fiction serial which he writes to make ends meet. The reconciliation of a contemptible reality and a subjugated fantasy and the ways in which both becomes modes of escapism for Chow is at the heart of the film's thesis. The concept is that we invent ways in which to avoid harshness in our own lives, but by doing so we are postponing and not eliminating, an action which can only serve to hurt us in the long run.
Despite being a largely complex and intimidating film, 2046 manages to be sensual and passionate as well. The film aches for a cathartic release of psychological and physical tensions between characters. Lust and fear burn and tremble across the screen and while Wong Kar-wai makes the film look exquisite (his tech-savvy and highly stylized film making is salient without being overly commercialized) it is his cast which makes the film vivid and unmistakable. In a film which so expertly captures the depressive disconnect between a man and his corporeality, the subtle tenderness as his former self breaks through his carefully maintained iron exterior is like the precious exhalation from dying body. More than the voice-over narration, it is the internal struggle Chow undergoes that brings the audience in sync with his world of suffering and disenchantment.
As much as we'd like to, the truth is that the harder we try to outstrip parts of our life, the stronger they attach themselves to our present situation. The more we try to forget a lover, the more often we find fragments of that person in our midst. The trying and the almost inevitable failure are a part of a larger continuum of change and how we, as individuals, cope with it. Suffice it to say that there is no easy solution but 2046 does pose some potential cures, or at least tranquilizers, for heartbreak. The film begins by telling how “no one ever came back from '2046', except one man”. '2046' is our artificial paradise: the place where we tweak the events of our lives towards absolute perfection and play them over and over again. What Wong Kar-wai proposes in this film is that this does not actually make us feel any better and that the only way to truly overcome our painful past is to accept the inconsistency of life and leave '2046', “the place where nothing changes”, and never come back.
2004
9.5
For all its cyclical and arc-like possibilities life has a sour tendency of being cut and divided into rations. Each are meant to be savored but inevitably they are gobbled down and compared quite frankly to previous portions and the hopes of future servings. Once consumed they are gone for good but this reality some how does not keep us from wishing against all odds that we might someday taste that same enriching fare. The memory of its consistencies, textures and flavors haunts us. At times even the thought that the true feast is right around the corner, the one that will make all others seem like mere nibblings and hors d'oeuvres, cannot keep us from wanting a former piece so badly that we turn instead to the dark and lonesome corners of starvation in the vain hope that the absence of nourishment might help us forget our very fundamental need of it. Segmentation has become an unnatural but nonetheless accepted part of life. Art, the painfully accurate reflection of life, has developed the capacity to emulate this tendency. In Wong Kar-wai's 2046 the theme of compartmentalization is adapted to a stunning and sometimes perplexing visual realization. Engaging in aspects of romance, high-drama, and science fiction the film weaves together a complex tapestry of love, regret, and memory. The end result is both stupefying and astoundingly gorgeous.
Based loosely on themes and plots from two previous films by Kar-wai (Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love), 2046 can be jarring without proper appropriation of certain material from the two aforementioned films. Still, the core of the film is not strictly reliant on this knowledge, but rather it assists in contextualizing the film. The story is based on a few years in a man's life, Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), and his encounters with people, mostly women, during those times. Chow has recently loved and lost and throughout the film he finds pieces of his lost love in his new romances. However, he has refused to have his heart broken again and has thus built a towering, nearly impenetrable wall around himself to keep passion out and his insecurities in. In doing so he has unwittingly secured his inability to cope with his own devastation and move forward in his life. The film's plot line is highly reflective of this, with jumps in time that are confounding but revealing as Chow relives moments, seemingly without meaning to, that he has refused to completely release. To add to the greater sense of disorientation the film also encompasses a fictional, futuristic dream-world known as '2046', where “nothing ever changes”. These escapades are both an enigmatic and cryptic rendering of Chow's detachment from reality (scenes from '2046' exclusively feature the characters from the linear portion of the film in largely metaphoric roles) as well as the basis for a science fiction serial which he writes to make ends meet. The reconciliation of a contemptible reality and a subjugated fantasy and the ways in which both becomes modes of escapism for Chow is at the heart of the film's thesis. The concept is that we invent ways in which to avoid harshness in our own lives, but by doing so we are postponing and not eliminating, an action which can only serve to hurt us in the long run.
Despite being a largely complex and intimidating film, 2046 manages to be sensual and passionate as well. The film aches for a cathartic release of psychological and physical tensions between characters. Lust and fear burn and tremble across the screen and while Wong Kar-wai makes the film look exquisite (his tech-savvy and highly stylized film making is salient without being overly commercialized) it is his cast which makes the film vivid and unmistakable. In a film which so expertly captures the depressive disconnect between a man and his corporeality, the subtle tenderness as his former self breaks through his carefully maintained iron exterior is like the precious exhalation from dying body. More than the voice-over narration, it is the internal struggle Chow undergoes that brings the audience in sync with his world of suffering and disenchantment.
As much as we'd like to, the truth is that the harder we try to outstrip parts of our life, the stronger they attach themselves to our present situation. The more we try to forget a lover, the more often we find fragments of that person in our midst. The trying and the almost inevitable failure are a part of a larger continuum of change and how we, as individuals, cope with it. Suffice it to say that there is no easy solution but 2046 does pose some potential cures, or at least tranquilizers, for heartbreak. The film begins by telling how “no one ever came back from '2046', except one man”. '2046' is our artificial paradise: the place where we tweak the events of our lives towards absolute perfection and play them over and over again. What Wong Kar-wai proposes in this film is that this does not actually make us feel any better and that the only way to truly overcome our painful past is to accept the inconsistency of life and leave '2046', “the place where nothing changes”, and never come back.
Jules et Jim
Dir. Francois Truffaut
1962
n/a
Love is war. Real love that is. The artificial, simplified, celluloid dreamscapes etched upon the silver screens of popular cinemas are abstractions, distractions and completely void of consciousness. They nullify reality and celebrate the impossible: the perfect love. Real love is full of sieges, surrenders, negotiations, treaties and assassinations. It is not premeditated and each successive battle, although it may try to adhere to universal conventions, obeys no laws. The anarchy of desire rules the ravaged landscape of amour. If a person seeks a visual complement to the desperately complex and entrancing world of real love, the French New Wave is one of the better places to start. Between Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais and Francois Truffaut the pervasive, subterranean universe of love and its relation to sex, meaning and existence came about as close as it will ever come to having a distinct definition. The level of clarity and poetic truth they achieved, alongside a myriad of other notable New Wave filmmakers, through the vital and experimental French cinematic movement is simply unparalleled. While Godard's Breathless may be seen as the pinnacle of the movement, among its most all encompassing and highly affecting pieces is Truffaut's Jules et Jim, a sweeping epic and a mutinous piece of romantic film making.
Jules et Jim stuns the senses. It races along with all the nervous energy of young love. Characteristic of the New Wave movement, the film is technically astounding, utilizing enough dynamic film techniques that it is, in and of itself, like a textbook on ocular and auditory stimulation and satisfaction. Whereas in the presence of more concrete subject matter, these techniques would be distracting, here they compliment the marvelous displays of confusion and mixed emotions by Truffaut's expert cast. The film plants the viewer squarely in the middle of a love triangle whose borders and angles are constantly shifting. There is Jules (Oskar Werner), the introverted Austrian who forms a friendship with Jim (Henri Serre), a French romantic, and then, of course, there is the girl: Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) who both Jules and Jim fall in love with after marveling her statued doppelganger in a public garden. They are entranced by the ambiguous smile that both possess. Jules and Catherine marry and, although they are resigned to being content, neither is ever quite satisfied with the relationship. Catherine is noted for her capricious disdain for the ordinary. Stability mocks her capacity to cope with tragedy and at times she forces drama upon herself in order to extricate excitement from the tenuous relationships she has formed with the men in her life, namely Jules and Jim. She falls in and out of love, gaining and losing trust and appreciation, until Jules no longer feels he can love her and Jim can no longer tolerate being used as an object of her ardent, sometimes inexplicable, fervor. In the end she takes her own life along with Jim's and leaves to Jules the sadly satisfying manifestation of the loneliness he has felt for years.
There is a conversation in the film that is very appealing to me. It takes place after Jules and Jim return from their respective time spent on opposing sides of World War I. In a field the two are accompanied by Albert, one of Catherine's many temporary lovers, and they discuss the war. During the conversation Jules imparts this bit of wisdom: “What's revolting about war is that it deprives man of his own individual battle”. For all the horrible grandeur of world war, one of the great debilitating effects is a distinct lack of personal initiative. One becomes a part of a nationalistic crusade and is mostly powerless to matter in either a great facility or, conversely, to be void of use. All movements and actions are controlled by invisible and highly exterior motivations, of which a soldier only understands the smallest degree. This war narrative embodies the film. In war, as in love, it is best not to have your intentions be completely known. A certain amount of secrecy is necessary for both the purpose of sanity and seduction. In Jules et Jim, Catherine is the great temptress and prize. While no acts of physical violence occur between the two friends (with the exception of their friendly brawling) a greater psychological battle is being waged. There is a surprising lack of malice between the two friends, as both want what is best for the other. This, however, is the mystery, not only of the film but of all bipartisan endeavors. What is best for both parties? Where are the lines to be drawn? Who stakes a claim to what territory? And how long until one or both groups become unsatisfied with the division of capital and land, and contention begins again?
When the lives of three people (the two warring combatants and the “prize”) become entangled by equivocal amounts of pleasure, pain and manic love the necessity for conquest or rational colloquy becomes apparent. What does not reveal itself until much later is how a perfect equilibrium between two battling factions can never be fully reached so long as both desire the complete and unquestioned claim to victory. The only solutions lie in the completely abandonment of proclivity or total annihilation; both of which underscore the need for a desertion of interest. As if this scenario weren't complicated enough the “territory”, over which Jules and Jim strive for sole propriety, has a will of its own, like an island that roams aimlessly about the sea, attaching itself to whichever large, exotic land mass it comes across; leaving just as quickly as it arrived. The love-war over a women who does not know what she wants is never over until her ashes are scattered on the winds.
1962
n/a
Love is war. Real love that is. The artificial, simplified, celluloid dreamscapes etched upon the silver screens of popular cinemas are abstractions, distractions and completely void of consciousness. They nullify reality and celebrate the impossible: the perfect love. Real love is full of sieges, surrenders, negotiations, treaties and assassinations. It is not premeditated and each successive battle, although it may try to adhere to universal conventions, obeys no laws. The anarchy of desire rules the ravaged landscape of amour. If a person seeks a visual complement to the desperately complex and entrancing world of real love, the French New Wave is one of the better places to start. Between Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais and Francois Truffaut the pervasive, subterranean universe of love and its relation to sex, meaning and existence came about as close as it will ever come to having a distinct definition. The level of clarity and poetic truth they achieved, alongside a myriad of other notable New Wave filmmakers, through the vital and experimental French cinematic movement is simply unparalleled. While Godard's Breathless may be seen as the pinnacle of the movement, among its most all encompassing and highly affecting pieces is Truffaut's Jules et Jim, a sweeping epic and a mutinous piece of romantic film making.
Jules et Jim stuns the senses. It races along with all the nervous energy of young love. Characteristic of the New Wave movement, the film is technically astounding, utilizing enough dynamic film techniques that it is, in and of itself, like a textbook on ocular and auditory stimulation and satisfaction. Whereas in the presence of more concrete subject matter, these techniques would be distracting, here they compliment the marvelous displays of confusion and mixed emotions by Truffaut's expert cast. The film plants the viewer squarely in the middle of a love triangle whose borders and angles are constantly shifting. There is Jules (Oskar Werner), the introverted Austrian who forms a friendship with Jim (Henri Serre), a French romantic, and then, of course, there is the girl: Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) who both Jules and Jim fall in love with after marveling her statued doppelganger in a public garden. They are entranced by the ambiguous smile that both possess. Jules and Catherine marry and, although they are resigned to being content, neither is ever quite satisfied with the relationship. Catherine is noted for her capricious disdain for the ordinary. Stability mocks her capacity to cope with tragedy and at times she forces drama upon herself in order to extricate excitement from the tenuous relationships she has formed with the men in her life, namely Jules and Jim. She falls in and out of love, gaining and losing trust and appreciation, until Jules no longer feels he can love her and Jim can no longer tolerate being used as an object of her ardent, sometimes inexplicable, fervor. In the end she takes her own life along with Jim's and leaves to Jules the sadly satisfying manifestation of the loneliness he has felt for years.
There is a conversation in the film that is very appealing to me. It takes place after Jules and Jim return from their respective time spent on opposing sides of World War I. In a field the two are accompanied by Albert, one of Catherine's many temporary lovers, and they discuss the war. During the conversation Jules imparts this bit of wisdom: “What's revolting about war is that it deprives man of his own individual battle”. For all the horrible grandeur of world war, one of the great debilitating effects is a distinct lack of personal initiative. One becomes a part of a nationalistic crusade and is mostly powerless to matter in either a great facility or, conversely, to be void of use. All movements and actions are controlled by invisible and highly exterior motivations, of which a soldier only understands the smallest degree. This war narrative embodies the film. In war, as in love, it is best not to have your intentions be completely known. A certain amount of secrecy is necessary for both the purpose of sanity and seduction. In Jules et Jim, Catherine is the great temptress and prize. While no acts of physical violence occur between the two friends (with the exception of their friendly brawling) a greater psychological battle is being waged. There is a surprising lack of malice between the two friends, as both want what is best for the other. This, however, is the mystery, not only of the film but of all bipartisan endeavors. What is best for both parties? Where are the lines to be drawn? Who stakes a claim to what territory? And how long until one or both groups become unsatisfied with the division of capital and land, and contention begins again?
When the lives of three people (the two warring combatants and the “prize”) become entangled by equivocal amounts of pleasure, pain and manic love the necessity for conquest or rational colloquy becomes apparent. What does not reveal itself until much later is how a perfect equilibrium between two battling factions can never be fully reached so long as both desire the complete and unquestioned claim to victory. The only solutions lie in the completely abandonment of proclivity or total annihilation; both of which underscore the need for a desertion of interest. As if this scenario weren't complicated enough the “territory”, over which Jules and Jim strive for sole propriety, has a will of its own, like an island that roams aimlessly about the sea, attaching itself to whichever large, exotic land mass it comes across; leaving just as quickly as it arrived. The love-war over a women who does not know what she wants is never over until her ashes are scattered on the winds.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
La Strada
Dir. Federico Fellini
1954
n/a
Ever since I saw my first Federico Fellini film I've liked to think of his pictures as circuses. They are huge, absurd and wonderfully entertaining, but beneath their surface exterior of shimmer and paint there is always something a little more sinister; something more melancholy; and something always much harder to grasp. In La Strada Fellini takes this generalized metaphor and transforms it into a highly literal translation. The film is all about the lives of circus performers. Had any other director been behind it the film would have likely been a straightforward, slap-stick field day of a film. With Fellini, however, nothing is ever straightforward. La Strada is a grand tragedy that parades with all the oom-pah-pah of a farce. It is an existential comedy of errors, only these errors lead not to knee-slaps and guffaws but to death and suffering. With his coy understanding of the human spirit Fellini conjures up another roaming masterpiece of cinema that exposes all the sorrow and sacrifice put aside in the name of comedic entertainment.
The film stars Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, as the adorable Gelsomina, the sad clown of La Strada. She is a Chaplin-esque performer whose simplistic understanding of the world ends up being decimated by her experiences with cruelty, malice and death. This disenthralled release from the innocuousness of her childhood becomes the focus of the narrative. She is sold to street performer Zampano (Anthony Quinn), who is a barbarous and immoral man. Throughout the film there are numerous references to Gelsomina being more like a faithful dog that Zampano can teach tricks to than the wife he claims her to be. Zampano frequently abandons Gelsomina but it is that same fidelity that keeps her from leaving him. With Gelsomina, Fellini draws a beautiful sketch of a girl not fit for this world: too naïve to understand the instability of the poor people she lives amongst and the painful depths of her own torturous existence, while simultaneously all too good at faking an enthusiastic happiness that is intoxicating to those around her. Her on screen heart break is unbearable. Children are meant to be introduced to life's struggles slowly and under the protective gaze of their parents and loved ones. Gelsomina, who is all but a child in the film, is introduced to tragedy first hand with only a mocking slave driver of a man as company. At times she is paraded about, other times she is hungry but through the unbelievable resilience inherent in all children, she survives until the moment when she is finally piteously abandoned for good by Zampano, who we come to realize cannot cope with his feelings for her any longer. If La Strada is meant to be a film about the deceiving nature of appearances, especially by those who make a living doing so, then Fellini's ultimate revelation of Zampano's own grief at leaving behind a child whose innocence tortured him because of his heavily repressed desire to be good and not evil, is certainly the definitive climax of the film.
Fellini, like the Italian Neo-Realists who came before him, acquaints his viewers with a dramatically different view of Italy than the stereotypical images of graceful dancers and artistic beauty that have infiltrated the non-European mind. His Italy is raw and stark; flashy but altogether artificial; absurd to the point of being melodramatic. It is a world unto itself that real people do not think about, much less exist in. Comparatively his characters are much the same, but what grounds Fellini's films, especially this one, is the theory that if you change both the nature of your characters, say from realistic to being tantamount to a synthetic idea or concept, and their environments then nothing has really changed at all, only moved. Like changing water from a clear glass to a colored one: it may look awfully different but there is still only water in the glass. Fellini's grandeur extends from this understanding and his construction of meaning in and through this model of film making. He has not necessarily created a new message, only an unparalleled and highly particular way of communicating.
Fellini's films do have a habit of being terribly esoteric. They incorporate a great number of significant ideas and issues and present them in ways that are often baffling to those unaccustomed to his style of delivery. Still, from the chaos of his films comes a sublime understanding of the world's madness. While drummed up to prove a point, his films are generally meant to divulge, in their absurdity, how truly absurd the world can be. La Strada is no different in that respect. Fellini uses the medium of circus performance, a tongue-and-cheek 'art form', to put on a vivid display of the sad and crazy lives of ordinary people. Here is a man doing his best to fulfill the macho role his culture demands of him, betraying his inner anxiety about being appreciated and maybe even liked, and a young girl capable of only two emotions, both of which are unquestionably sincere, whose world expands too quickly and to a fatalistic end (the film begins with the news of her sister's death and ends with Zampano receiving the news of her's). They come together for a brief time and then are separated forever. Just shy of two hours La Strada encapsulates a lifetime of confusion, suffering and repentance that is no mock-up of reality: it is reality.
1954
n/a
Ever since I saw my first Federico Fellini film I've liked to think of his pictures as circuses. They are huge, absurd and wonderfully entertaining, but beneath their surface exterior of shimmer and paint there is always something a little more sinister; something more melancholy; and something always much harder to grasp. In La Strada Fellini takes this generalized metaphor and transforms it into a highly literal translation. The film is all about the lives of circus performers. Had any other director been behind it the film would have likely been a straightforward, slap-stick field day of a film. With Fellini, however, nothing is ever straightforward. La Strada is a grand tragedy that parades with all the oom-pah-pah of a farce. It is an existential comedy of errors, only these errors lead not to knee-slaps and guffaws but to death and suffering. With his coy understanding of the human spirit Fellini conjures up another roaming masterpiece of cinema that exposes all the sorrow and sacrifice put aside in the name of comedic entertainment.
The film stars Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, as the adorable Gelsomina, the sad clown of La Strada. She is a Chaplin-esque performer whose simplistic understanding of the world ends up being decimated by her experiences with cruelty, malice and death. This disenthralled release from the innocuousness of her childhood becomes the focus of the narrative. She is sold to street performer Zampano (Anthony Quinn), who is a barbarous and immoral man. Throughout the film there are numerous references to Gelsomina being more like a faithful dog that Zampano can teach tricks to than the wife he claims her to be. Zampano frequently abandons Gelsomina but it is that same fidelity that keeps her from leaving him. With Gelsomina, Fellini draws a beautiful sketch of a girl not fit for this world: too naïve to understand the instability of the poor people she lives amongst and the painful depths of her own torturous existence, while simultaneously all too good at faking an enthusiastic happiness that is intoxicating to those around her. Her on screen heart break is unbearable. Children are meant to be introduced to life's struggles slowly and under the protective gaze of their parents and loved ones. Gelsomina, who is all but a child in the film, is introduced to tragedy first hand with only a mocking slave driver of a man as company. At times she is paraded about, other times she is hungry but through the unbelievable resilience inherent in all children, she survives until the moment when she is finally piteously abandoned for good by Zampano, who we come to realize cannot cope with his feelings for her any longer. If La Strada is meant to be a film about the deceiving nature of appearances, especially by those who make a living doing so, then Fellini's ultimate revelation of Zampano's own grief at leaving behind a child whose innocence tortured him because of his heavily repressed desire to be good and not evil, is certainly the definitive climax of the film.
Fellini, like the Italian Neo-Realists who came before him, acquaints his viewers with a dramatically different view of Italy than the stereotypical images of graceful dancers and artistic beauty that have infiltrated the non-European mind. His Italy is raw and stark; flashy but altogether artificial; absurd to the point of being melodramatic. It is a world unto itself that real people do not think about, much less exist in. Comparatively his characters are much the same, but what grounds Fellini's films, especially this one, is the theory that if you change both the nature of your characters, say from realistic to being tantamount to a synthetic idea or concept, and their environments then nothing has really changed at all, only moved. Like changing water from a clear glass to a colored one: it may look awfully different but there is still only water in the glass. Fellini's grandeur extends from this understanding and his construction of meaning in and through this model of film making. He has not necessarily created a new message, only an unparalleled and highly particular way of communicating.
Fellini's films do have a habit of being terribly esoteric. They incorporate a great number of significant ideas and issues and present them in ways that are often baffling to those unaccustomed to his style of delivery. Still, from the chaos of his films comes a sublime understanding of the world's madness. While drummed up to prove a point, his films are generally meant to divulge, in their absurdity, how truly absurd the world can be. La Strada is no different in that respect. Fellini uses the medium of circus performance, a tongue-and-cheek 'art form', to put on a vivid display of the sad and crazy lives of ordinary people. Here is a man doing his best to fulfill the macho role his culture demands of him, betraying his inner anxiety about being appreciated and maybe even liked, and a young girl capable of only two emotions, both of which are unquestionably sincere, whose world expands too quickly and to a fatalistic end (the film begins with the news of her sister's death and ends with Zampano receiving the news of her's). They come together for a brief time and then are separated forever. Just shy of two hours La Strada encapsulates a lifetime of confusion, suffering and repentance that is no mock-up of reality: it is reality.
The Magnificent Ambersons
Dir. Orson Welles
1942
n/a
Imagine making the follow up to Citizen Kane. Granted, Citizen Kane wasn't immediately and obviously accepted as the greatest film of all time, as it is now so often called by those who know, but it is undeniable that it was a film the likes of which Hollywood had never seen. Orson Welles had his fair share of trouble with the producers and Hollywood executives who, even in the 40s, were busy meddling in the work of cinematic artists. Those troubles didn't cease with Welles' second film, The Magnificent Ambersons, which, after production went over budget and time constraints, was seized by RKO, the distributer, and promptly dismantled. RKO cut over 40 minutes of the film and changed the ending, which is obvious as it is rather optimistic for Welles. Still, despite how comparatively Wellesian the film is or is not, it is still a stunning piece of progressive cinema. Suffice it to say that you'd have to do quite a lot to take the Orson Welles out of an Orson Welles film, and The Magnificent Ambersons still reeks of the perpetual dissatisfaction, autobiographical egomania, and forward looking auteur-ism that made Citizen Kane and so many of his subsequent films both memorable and grossly unnerving.
The Magnificent Ambersons relates the fall of a family like the fall of an empire, with all the inclinations towards incestuous behavior and outrageous disconnect with reality. At the focal point is young Mr. George Amberson-Minifer (Tim Holt, a Wellesian protege if there ever was one) and his backwards upbringing of never being denied anything and thus becoming an insatiable and delinquent young man. His mother, Isabel Amberson (Dolores Costello), has always doted on him, and denied herself everything, even the man she has always loved, inventor Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotton). The Ambersons' family affairs begin to spiral out of control after the death of George's father and the ensuing love affair between Eugene and Isabel, of which George greatly disapproves. Conniving and pathetic Aunt Fanny (Agnes Moorehead) attempts at helping George disintegrate the love affair, but suffers from chronic nervous breakdowns that confuse the hell out of poor George who believes that he is not keeping his mother and Eugene from happiness out of malice, but out of his respect for his family's “good name”. Like in Citizen Kane George succeeds in self-destructing not only his own life but his family's as well, when his mother dies after returning home from Paris with him, his uncle leaves, his grand father dies leaving all his money to Fanny who invests poorly and loses all of it. All the while George is trying to court the lovely Lucy Morgan (Anne Baxter) and ultimately fails in that endeavor as well. The film somehow manages to end happily with a near-death experience causing George to beg forgiveness from Eugene who he has treated with such deep seated lack of consideration all throughout the film. No doubt RKO found this ending to be more suitable, despite the conspicuous lack of continuity.
While keeping his hand well into the film (he did direct, write the adaptation of, and narrate the film after all), Welles keeps his face out of it. I couldn't help thinking that had he performed the part of George it would have had a little more life to it; an air of mystery and a greater sense of repressed self-loathing. Still, it was probably in his best interest to stay off screen for this film lest he give critics anymore reason to point out his characteristic narcissism. Without Welles on screen his arrogance and contempt for humanity reveals itself in different ways. Welles spreads his knack for understanding the bastardized ways humans can act towards each other over a number of characters. Its not that the characters in Citzen Kane weren't all impressively well developed, but Charles Arthur Kane was the focal point of that film and the majority of Welles' insight at that time went into making the most oppressively realistic titan ever to be captured on the silver screen. Conversely in The Magnificent Ambersons he widens his scope but also dulls his impact noticeably. The film still boasts sophisticated psychology but in 90 minutes there is only so many moments of revolting insincerity and unconscious self-deprecation that can be shown. Still, who knows whether the original cut and that deleted extra hour of footage would have helped in developing the characters of The Magnificent Ambersons.
I feel sorry for Orson Welles, even though he's dead and far more famous than I will ever be. I feel sorry for him because Citizen Kane was the first film he ever made and despite the critical praise lavished on The Magnificent Ambersons and Touch of Evil among others, his memory will never outlive it's legacy. When one talks or writes about any Orson Welles movie they are desperately trying to avoid mentioning Citizen Kane with the dual concern that it will obscure the quality of whichever film they are writing about but that it will also make them seem as though they view Welles' entire career in the context of that single film. The Magnificent Ambersons is not Citizen Kane, but that's a good thing. Welles succeeded in making a number films after Citizen Kane that were insightful and incisive, and comparatively disheartening as well. He was a sad but irrefutably vital figure in the world of cinema that, in the 40s, was just coming into bloom. Through his own personal and artistic hardship he paved the way for so many great filmmakers from around the world, with both his inspirational film making and deeply controversial subject matter. The Magnificent Ambersons is a synecdoche: an essential part of a larger canon of film that forever shaped the way people watch and make movies.
1942
n/a
Imagine making the follow up to Citizen Kane. Granted, Citizen Kane wasn't immediately and obviously accepted as the greatest film of all time, as it is now so often called by those who know, but it is undeniable that it was a film the likes of which Hollywood had never seen. Orson Welles had his fair share of trouble with the producers and Hollywood executives who, even in the 40s, were busy meddling in the work of cinematic artists. Those troubles didn't cease with Welles' second film, The Magnificent Ambersons, which, after production went over budget and time constraints, was seized by RKO, the distributer, and promptly dismantled. RKO cut over 40 minutes of the film and changed the ending, which is obvious as it is rather optimistic for Welles. Still, despite how comparatively Wellesian the film is or is not, it is still a stunning piece of progressive cinema. Suffice it to say that you'd have to do quite a lot to take the Orson Welles out of an Orson Welles film, and The Magnificent Ambersons still reeks of the perpetual dissatisfaction, autobiographical egomania, and forward looking auteur-ism that made Citizen Kane and so many of his subsequent films both memorable and grossly unnerving.
The Magnificent Ambersons relates the fall of a family like the fall of an empire, with all the inclinations towards incestuous behavior and outrageous disconnect with reality. At the focal point is young Mr. George Amberson-Minifer (Tim Holt, a Wellesian protege if there ever was one) and his backwards upbringing of never being denied anything and thus becoming an insatiable and delinquent young man. His mother, Isabel Amberson (Dolores Costello), has always doted on him, and denied herself everything, even the man she has always loved, inventor Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotton). The Ambersons' family affairs begin to spiral out of control after the death of George's father and the ensuing love affair between Eugene and Isabel, of which George greatly disapproves. Conniving and pathetic Aunt Fanny (Agnes Moorehead) attempts at helping George disintegrate the love affair, but suffers from chronic nervous breakdowns that confuse the hell out of poor George who believes that he is not keeping his mother and Eugene from happiness out of malice, but out of his respect for his family's “good name”. Like in Citizen Kane George succeeds in self-destructing not only his own life but his family's as well, when his mother dies after returning home from Paris with him, his uncle leaves, his grand father dies leaving all his money to Fanny who invests poorly and loses all of it. All the while George is trying to court the lovely Lucy Morgan (Anne Baxter) and ultimately fails in that endeavor as well. The film somehow manages to end happily with a near-death experience causing George to beg forgiveness from Eugene who he has treated with such deep seated lack of consideration all throughout the film. No doubt RKO found this ending to be more suitable, despite the conspicuous lack of continuity.
While keeping his hand well into the film (he did direct, write the adaptation of, and narrate the film after all), Welles keeps his face out of it. I couldn't help thinking that had he performed the part of George it would have had a little more life to it; an air of mystery and a greater sense of repressed self-loathing. Still, it was probably in his best interest to stay off screen for this film lest he give critics anymore reason to point out his characteristic narcissism. Without Welles on screen his arrogance and contempt for humanity reveals itself in different ways. Welles spreads his knack for understanding the bastardized ways humans can act towards each other over a number of characters. Its not that the characters in Citzen Kane weren't all impressively well developed, but Charles Arthur Kane was the focal point of that film and the majority of Welles' insight at that time went into making the most oppressively realistic titan ever to be captured on the silver screen. Conversely in The Magnificent Ambersons he widens his scope but also dulls his impact noticeably. The film still boasts sophisticated psychology but in 90 minutes there is only so many moments of revolting insincerity and unconscious self-deprecation that can be shown. Still, who knows whether the original cut and that deleted extra hour of footage would have helped in developing the characters of The Magnificent Ambersons.
I feel sorry for Orson Welles, even though he's dead and far more famous than I will ever be. I feel sorry for him because Citizen Kane was the first film he ever made and despite the critical praise lavished on The Magnificent Ambersons and Touch of Evil among others, his memory will never outlive it's legacy. When one talks or writes about any Orson Welles movie they are desperately trying to avoid mentioning Citizen Kane with the dual concern that it will obscure the quality of whichever film they are writing about but that it will also make them seem as though they view Welles' entire career in the context of that single film. The Magnificent Ambersons is not Citizen Kane, but that's a good thing. Welles succeeded in making a number films after Citizen Kane that were insightful and incisive, and comparatively disheartening as well. He was a sad but irrefutably vital figure in the world of cinema that, in the 40s, was just coming into bloom. Through his own personal and artistic hardship he paved the way for so many great filmmakers from around the world, with both his inspirational film making and deeply controversial subject matter. The Magnificent Ambersons is a synecdoche: an essential part of a larger canon of film that forever shaped the way people watch and make movies.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Ordet
Dir. Carl Dreyer
1955
n/a
In Carl Dreyer's Ordet a fleeting reference is made to Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish religious philosopher highly regarded as the father of existentialism. In perhaps his best known work, “Fear and Trembling”(1843), Kierkegaard grapples with the fundamental incongruity between rationality and faith. Similarly Dreyer's Ordet calls into question the relationship between the two, and whether or not a person can find satisfaction in either or in a amalgamation of the two. What he unearths is the desperate reluctance of the human soul towards the improbable (miracles) and a certain astonishing comfort in what is both rational yet extremely upsetting (death). It is a film about faith, family and love and how the the principles that bring one group of people together can drive others away. Dreyer expertly unveils how those who profess faith are often the first to lose it, and those who profess not to have it are in fact holding back an insatiable desire to believe.
I have a rather large soft spot in my heart for Scandinavian film making. The lushness of the content is harshly juxtaposed with the starkness of the physical landscape and the motif of silence. Ordet embodies these features and dives deep into the philosophy of life, death and piety towards God that made Ingmar Bergman, a contemporary of Dreyer, so greatly respected. Ordet, like Bergman's reknowned God-themed trilogy (those films, it should be noted, came out several years after Ordet) of the early sixties (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence), probes the uncomfortable landscape of faith in the modern world. Ordet features two sons: Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) who believes himself to be the second coming of Christ, and another, Anders (Cay Kristiansen) who is initially forbidden to marry his love, Anne, by her father, Peter, because of religious differences between the two families. Morten Borgen (Henrik Malberg) is the family's patriarch and embodies the conflict of interest between the faithful (Johannes) and the rational like Morten's third son, Mikkel (Emil Hass Christensen), who, despite assurances from his wife, Inger (Birgitte Federspiel), that he is a good man, has no faith of his own. As it is in the world that exists outside the movie theater, in Ordet each person comes with their own philosophy on how life should be lived and feels crushed by the burden of trying to convince others that their way is best. Peter and Morten quarrel about whose version of Christianity is best. Morten accuses Peter of being obsessed with death while obstinately concluding that his Christianity, which focuses on the the greatness of life, is how God intended people to live. Peter's philosophy is that his humble piety here on Earth will be repaid to him in full when he rises to Heaven upon his death. It is not long before the countering faiths of the two families is put into praxis when Inger falls ill and dies after an agonizing miscarriage. In the film's final scene the two families come together, Anders is given permission to marry Anne, Peter and Morten agree that they both share an equally powerful faith, and Johannes, in one of the most memorable scenes in the history of film, commands, by the will of God, that Inger rise from the dead, which she does.
Truly believing, without any dubious skepticism, is not a terribly easy thing to do. Throughout Ordet references are made to how miracles “used to happen” but don't anymore; a reflection on the cynically logical nature of the modern age. Miracles used to occur because people could not dissociate divine intervention from scientific anomalies. In a rigorously intellectual moment in the film, the doctor that has just finished 'saving' Inger's life (she dies after he leaves) sits down to a conversation with the new local priest. The doctor poses a question to Morten about whether it was his prayers or the doctor's work that saved Inger's life. Morten responds that it was the will of God. The doctor and the priest converse about the nature of miracles versus the tangibility of hard work or as the priest calls it “ora et labora” (pray and labor). The priest, in an attempt to draw up a rational God (a natural contradiction according to the film's philosophy), finds himself in an uncomfortable contradiction stating how God can perform miracles but does not because he created the laws of nature which would be broken by the miracles most people ask for. When the doctor presses him about Jesus' miracles the priest mistakenly calls them “a special circumstance” for which the doctor mockingly lambastes him. The emphasis here is that both faith and the lack there of are painfully partial, and are a root of conflict sown amongst so many good natured people.
When Johannes resurrects the lifeless body of Inger he also resurrects the lost faith of those in the room. Before doing so he criticizes their faith calling it weak and susceptible to doubt. The joy that fills the room after the resurrection is not found often on Earth because faith as strong and true as the faith exhibited by Johannes is unfortunately deemed blasphemous by the Christian doctrine who, in order to appeal to the greatest common denominator while simultaneously repenting for its former sins (killings and injustices performed in the name of God. See: Dreyer's equally stunning The Passion of Joan of Arc), reserves the right to reject all forms of faith that are judged to be too disconnected from the scientific reasoning that the age of ready information has given birth to and which oppose the notion of a 'rational God'. A man who believes himself to be the son of God and who works miracles, or a woman convinced that she has been sent by God to cast oppressors out of her homeland, have been considered enemies of the church. The heart of Dreyer's message in Ordet is that the two: rationality and faith, are not incongruous but rely on a certain level of mutual understanding in order to exist in harmony. Ordet presents the brilliant, but simple idea that both faith and reason can both be tested but the unpredictability of life and that, in order to thrive, a person can not understand one in terms of the other (a rational God or a divine science) but hold a delicate, reciprocal respect for both.
1955
n/a
In Carl Dreyer's Ordet a fleeting reference is made to Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish religious philosopher highly regarded as the father of existentialism. In perhaps his best known work, “Fear and Trembling”(1843), Kierkegaard grapples with the fundamental incongruity between rationality and faith. Similarly Dreyer's Ordet calls into question the relationship between the two, and whether or not a person can find satisfaction in either or in a amalgamation of the two. What he unearths is the desperate reluctance of the human soul towards the improbable (miracles) and a certain astonishing comfort in what is both rational yet extremely upsetting (death). It is a film about faith, family and love and how the the principles that bring one group of people together can drive others away. Dreyer expertly unveils how those who profess faith are often the first to lose it, and those who profess not to have it are in fact holding back an insatiable desire to believe.
I have a rather large soft spot in my heart for Scandinavian film making. The lushness of the content is harshly juxtaposed with the starkness of the physical landscape and the motif of silence. Ordet embodies these features and dives deep into the philosophy of life, death and piety towards God that made Ingmar Bergman, a contemporary of Dreyer, so greatly respected. Ordet, like Bergman's reknowned God-themed trilogy (those films, it should be noted, came out several years after Ordet) of the early sixties (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence), probes the uncomfortable landscape of faith in the modern world. Ordet features two sons: Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) who believes himself to be the second coming of Christ, and another, Anders (Cay Kristiansen) who is initially forbidden to marry his love, Anne, by her father, Peter, because of religious differences between the two families. Morten Borgen (Henrik Malberg) is the family's patriarch and embodies the conflict of interest between the faithful (Johannes) and the rational like Morten's third son, Mikkel (Emil Hass Christensen), who, despite assurances from his wife, Inger (Birgitte Federspiel), that he is a good man, has no faith of his own. As it is in the world that exists outside the movie theater, in Ordet each person comes with their own philosophy on how life should be lived and feels crushed by the burden of trying to convince others that their way is best. Peter and Morten quarrel about whose version of Christianity is best. Morten accuses Peter of being obsessed with death while obstinately concluding that his Christianity, which focuses on the the greatness of life, is how God intended people to live. Peter's philosophy is that his humble piety here on Earth will be repaid to him in full when he rises to Heaven upon his death. It is not long before the countering faiths of the two families is put into praxis when Inger falls ill and dies after an agonizing miscarriage. In the film's final scene the two families come together, Anders is given permission to marry Anne, Peter and Morten agree that they both share an equally powerful faith, and Johannes, in one of the most memorable scenes in the history of film, commands, by the will of God, that Inger rise from the dead, which she does.
Truly believing, without any dubious skepticism, is not a terribly easy thing to do. Throughout Ordet references are made to how miracles “used to happen” but don't anymore; a reflection on the cynically logical nature of the modern age. Miracles used to occur because people could not dissociate divine intervention from scientific anomalies. In a rigorously intellectual moment in the film, the doctor that has just finished 'saving' Inger's life (she dies after he leaves) sits down to a conversation with the new local priest. The doctor poses a question to Morten about whether it was his prayers or the doctor's work that saved Inger's life. Morten responds that it was the will of God. The doctor and the priest converse about the nature of miracles versus the tangibility of hard work or as the priest calls it “ora et labora” (pray and labor). The priest, in an attempt to draw up a rational God (a natural contradiction according to the film's philosophy), finds himself in an uncomfortable contradiction stating how God can perform miracles but does not because he created the laws of nature which would be broken by the miracles most people ask for. When the doctor presses him about Jesus' miracles the priest mistakenly calls them “a special circumstance” for which the doctor mockingly lambastes him. The emphasis here is that both faith and the lack there of are painfully partial, and are a root of conflict sown amongst so many good natured people.
When Johannes resurrects the lifeless body of Inger he also resurrects the lost faith of those in the room. Before doing so he criticizes their faith calling it weak and susceptible to doubt. The joy that fills the room after the resurrection is not found often on Earth because faith as strong and true as the faith exhibited by Johannes is unfortunately deemed blasphemous by the Christian doctrine who, in order to appeal to the greatest common denominator while simultaneously repenting for its former sins (killings and injustices performed in the name of God. See: Dreyer's equally stunning The Passion of Joan of Arc), reserves the right to reject all forms of faith that are judged to be too disconnected from the scientific reasoning that the age of ready information has given birth to and which oppose the notion of a 'rational God'. A man who believes himself to be the son of God and who works miracles, or a woman convinced that she has been sent by God to cast oppressors out of her homeland, have been considered enemies of the church. The heart of Dreyer's message in Ordet is that the two: rationality and faith, are not incongruous but rely on a certain level of mutual understanding in order to exist in harmony. Ordet presents the brilliant, but simple idea that both faith and reason can both be tested but the unpredictability of life and that, in order to thrive, a person can not understand one in terms of the other (a rational God or a divine science) but hold a delicate, reciprocal respect for both.
Rashomon
Dir. Akira Kurosawa
1950
n/a
In the real world nothing is ever dichotomous. Good and evil; nature and nurture; honor and cowardice; samurai and bandit, the purity of these polarities don't really exist. Some people go to great lengths to model themselves after archetypes of either pole but ultimately find frustration in their inability to transcend existence and become a moral paradigm. Eventually they discover that if they can fool themselves they can fool most everyone else as well. Image and reality begin to intermingle until the wall between the two becomes permeable, with lies and truth passing easily between. Many a filmmaker has tried to capture the natural contradiction of how people want to be seen and how they are seen but none have ever gone quite as far as Akira Kurosawa did in Rashomon. Kurosawa is known for probing the depths of the psyche but in Rashomon he takes this tendency to it's natural extreme, exhibiting not a singular point of view (Ikiru) or that of a naïve and hopeful body of people thinking as a whole (Seven Samurai) but several contradictory vantage points that challenge the notion of polarized morality.
Rashomon is a story within a story, a highly progressive dual-layered plot that spawned a form of critical theory known as the “Rashomon Effect” which hypothesizes on the subjectivity of memory and perception. The film begins with a priest (Minoru Chiaki) and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) who relate to a cynical commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) the scene they witnessed that day in a local court. Here the first 'flashback' begins. In court it is revealed that a bandit, Tajumaru (Toshiro Mifune) has robbed and murdered a man (Masayuki Mori) and raped his wife (Machiko Kyo). This is the basic story. What follows is the re-telling of the story from four different positions: Tajumaru, the man, his wife, and the woodcutter who, it is later revealed, was hiding out of sight, watching, while the scene unfolded. In each telling and re-telling the complexity of the characters builds and grows. Tajumaru admits to the killing and the raping, in order to keep up appearances as a fearless, Machiavellian bandit. Curiously though he sketches the wife not as a defenseless woman but as a fierce warrior, the likes of which he has never seen before. He claims to have fallen deeply in love with her and sworn himself to her, only to have her run off while he is murdering her husband. The wife's story is next. She shows no signs of the fierceness in Tajumaru's version of the events, and she writhes on the ground as she proclaims her weakness. She reveals that after Tajumaru raped her he ran off leaving both her and her husband alive. She begs her husband to kill her but he only stares at her coldly. In a state of deepening madness she plunges her dagger into his chest. The next variant is the most terrifying. The deceased husband communicates to the judges his story through a medium. The scene is haunting and disturbing as the medium shudders and convulses to the agony of the dead husband. He claims that his wife, after willingly giving herself to Tajumaru, demands that Tajumaru kill her husband so that she might be free from his oppressive lifelessness. Tajumaru refuses, on the grounds of her being a woman. He gives the husband a choice: “Do you want me to kill her or let her go?” The husband does not answer. The woman frees herself and Tajumaru gives chase, leaving the husband by himself. He, in an effort to convey his dignity, tells the judges that he killed himself so as not to be further shamed in this life.
The final interpretation is given not in the court, but back at the weather-worn temple Rashomon by the woodcutter to the priest and the commoner. His account is the most utterly devastating of them all. He illustrates the depravity of all three, with the bandit Tajumaru begging the woman to marry him, the husband refusing to re-accept his wife after she has been with another man, and the woman manipulating both of them by appealing to their macho vanity and purist pride, respectively. The visual retelling of his version does not retain any of the glory or exaggeration of the three before it, but confirms the profound lack of certainty in the entire tragedy. The philosophical camera pans back to reveal skepticism on the part of the commoner and the consummate depression the priest has fallen into. In a pivotal moment the commoner says to the priest and the woodcutter, after hearing all four versions of the story “In the end you cannot understand the things men do”. It is in this moment and especially in the revealing scene that follows it (in which a baby is found) when the woodcutter is revealed to be a thief, and the priest has his faith in humanity restored, that Kurosawa's intent becomes clear, like the sky in his perfectly designed closing shot.
Simply put: it is not about trying to be a certain way but being the way you are. The novelist Graham Greene once wrote “God save us from the innocent, at least the guilty know what they are about”. We are all guilty. At one time or another we have all been gutless liars. Whether it is to save face, to cover our weaknesses, or to try to impress someone, the motive is never as clear as the result. In Rashomon Kurosawa asks us to be the judge in this criminal morality case. It is our job to ascertain who, if anyone, is telling the truth. But truth, like the dichotomies above, is just another impossible standard of measurement; an essential part of the paradox of guilt and innocence. Pure guilt and pure innocence don't exist. These are relative understandings of unattainably huge ideals. Rashomon is a deeply investigative and revealing film about moral relativism and the manifold complexities of the human spirit.
1950
n/a
In the real world nothing is ever dichotomous. Good and evil; nature and nurture; honor and cowardice; samurai and bandit, the purity of these polarities don't really exist. Some people go to great lengths to model themselves after archetypes of either pole but ultimately find frustration in their inability to transcend existence and become a moral paradigm. Eventually they discover that if they can fool themselves they can fool most everyone else as well. Image and reality begin to intermingle until the wall between the two becomes permeable, with lies and truth passing easily between. Many a filmmaker has tried to capture the natural contradiction of how people want to be seen and how they are seen but none have ever gone quite as far as Akira Kurosawa did in Rashomon. Kurosawa is known for probing the depths of the psyche but in Rashomon he takes this tendency to it's natural extreme, exhibiting not a singular point of view (Ikiru) or that of a naïve and hopeful body of people thinking as a whole (Seven Samurai) but several contradictory vantage points that challenge the notion of polarized morality.
Rashomon is a story within a story, a highly progressive dual-layered plot that spawned a form of critical theory known as the “Rashomon Effect” which hypothesizes on the subjectivity of memory and perception. The film begins with a priest (Minoru Chiaki) and a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) who relate to a cynical commoner (Kichijiro Ueda) the scene they witnessed that day in a local court. Here the first 'flashback' begins. In court it is revealed that a bandit, Tajumaru (Toshiro Mifune) has robbed and murdered a man (Masayuki Mori) and raped his wife (Machiko Kyo). This is the basic story. What follows is the re-telling of the story from four different positions: Tajumaru, the man, his wife, and the woodcutter who, it is later revealed, was hiding out of sight, watching, while the scene unfolded. In each telling and re-telling the complexity of the characters builds and grows. Tajumaru admits to the killing and the raping, in order to keep up appearances as a fearless, Machiavellian bandit. Curiously though he sketches the wife not as a defenseless woman but as a fierce warrior, the likes of which he has never seen before. He claims to have fallen deeply in love with her and sworn himself to her, only to have her run off while he is murdering her husband. The wife's story is next. She shows no signs of the fierceness in Tajumaru's version of the events, and she writhes on the ground as she proclaims her weakness. She reveals that after Tajumaru raped her he ran off leaving both her and her husband alive. She begs her husband to kill her but he only stares at her coldly. In a state of deepening madness she plunges her dagger into his chest. The next variant is the most terrifying. The deceased husband communicates to the judges his story through a medium. The scene is haunting and disturbing as the medium shudders and convulses to the agony of the dead husband. He claims that his wife, after willingly giving herself to Tajumaru, demands that Tajumaru kill her husband so that she might be free from his oppressive lifelessness. Tajumaru refuses, on the grounds of her being a woman. He gives the husband a choice: “Do you want me to kill her or let her go?” The husband does not answer. The woman frees herself and Tajumaru gives chase, leaving the husband by himself. He, in an effort to convey his dignity, tells the judges that he killed himself so as not to be further shamed in this life.
The final interpretation is given not in the court, but back at the weather-worn temple Rashomon by the woodcutter to the priest and the commoner. His account is the most utterly devastating of them all. He illustrates the depravity of all three, with the bandit Tajumaru begging the woman to marry him, the husband refusing to re-accept his wife after she has been with another man, and the woman manipulating both of them by appealing to their macho vanity and purist pride, respectively. The visual retelling of his version does not retain any of the glory or exaggeration of the three before it, but confirms the profound lack of certainty in the entire tragedy. The philosophical camera pans back to reveal skepticism on the part of the commoner and the consummate depression the priest has fallen into. In a pivotal moment the commoner says to the priest and the woodcutter, after hearing all four versions of the story “In the end you cannot understand the things men do”. It is in this moment and especially in the revealing scene that follows it (in which a baby is found) when the woodcutter is revealed to be a thief, and the priest has his faith in humanity restored, that Kurosawa's intent becomes clear, like the sky in his perfectly designed closing shot.
Simply put: it is not about trying to be a certain way but being the way you are. The novelist Graham Greene once wrote “God save us from the innocent, at least the guilty know what they are about”. We are all guilty. At one time or another we have all been gutless liars. Whether it is to save face, to cover our weaknesses, or to try to impress someone, the motive is never as clear as the result. In Rashomon Kurosawa asks us to be the judge in this criminal morality case. It is our job to ascertain who, if anyone, is telling the truth. But truth, like the dichotomies above, is just another impossible standard of measurement; an essential part of the paradox of guilt and innocence. Pure guilt and pure innocence don't exist. These are relative understandings of unattainably huge ideals. Rashomon is a deeply investigative and revealing film about moral relativism and the manifold complexities of the human spirit.
Yi Yi
Dir. Edward Yang
2000
10.0
I remember taking an advanced writing class in high school. While the curriculum was hardly what I would call 'advanced' I did pick up a few good pieces of advice about writing along the way. The first was out of Stephen King's book "On Writing", where he recommends only writing what you know. Its solid, yet kind of obvious advice. In an overly literal sense we can only write what we know since writing something that has never entered into our consciousness would be impossible. Still, its an essential step towards compelling and honest writing, if that's what you're interested in doing. If not you can be like Stephen King and write fictional horror stories (note: psychologically King writes what he knows, it just has a tendency to manifest itself in a grossly inordinate way). The other piece of advice I garnered from the course was to avoid writing about events that you are too emotionally attached to. This may seem kind of backwards but if you've ever read a 2 to 3 page essay by a high schooler on the recent death of a family member or friend, you'd know why. Emotion overpowers articulation. Sincerity overwhelms the scrupulous nature of good writing. Conversely, writing that is devoid of emotion, permanently detached, tends to be tedious. Striking a balance between the necessary amounts of separation and connection needed to aptly convey meaning is a formative task, but it's realization is often breathtaking.
Take Edward Yang's Yi Yi (A One and a Two): a brutally honest and unflinching portrayal of life as a whole. In just under 3 hours Yang shows happiness, strife, failure, success, modesty, arrogance, birth, death and so much more. What makes Yang's film stand out among so many other films whose narrative arcs are meant to mirror the arc of a human life is how sincere he is. In the film's memorable last scene, 8 year old Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang) stands before his recently deceased grandmother and tells her that when he grows up he wants to show people things they've never seen before. Off the lips of anyone else this comment would sound condescending, but in this case Yang-Yang's innocence is overwhelming. The significance of such a tender and beautifully orchestrated moment is that it is one of many, a part for the whole, in the film. Yang covers so much territory in this family epic from a mother (Elain Jin) distraught by the inconclusive redundancy of her adult life; a daughter (Kelly Lee) coping with adolescent disillusionment; a father (Nien-Jen Wu) reliving his past while trying simultaneously to move forward with his family and in his company; and a son (Chang) slowly discovering the grandeur of life. And these are simply the main characters. Like a great novelist Yang brings to life everyone who appears on screen and does not shy away from the realities of clashing egos and formidable heartbreak. The film features several fights and many moments of intensely affecting displays of emotion, be it screaming or crying. His spectrum is wide and his pallet is astonishingly diverse but Yang never once gets lost in his own attention to detail and his greater diligence towards emotional impact and paralyzing realism. The film is vibrant and self-aware from start to finish. Simply speaking it is glorious; a piece of cinema for which any number of words are completely superfluous.
There's a moment in the film between Ting-Ting (Lee) and a boy nick-named Fatty where they are discussing a movie they have just seen. Ting-Ting didn't like it because she thought it was too sad. Fatty points out that film is created so that we might see lives that do not run parallel to our own. With Yi Yi, Yang has accomplished a near impossible task: the perfect molding of the familiar and the foreign: what we can relate to and what excites us into a stupor the way only something we've never experienced before can. The pain and crushing weight of repetitious reality that the adults cope with, the aging of the elders who begin to see their own end, and the confusing and enlightening lives of children who wake up every day just to see what the world will show them next, is all presented with such magical truth that the epic begins to develop into something more than just a film. It ends up being a mirror of our own lives and how we construct them. Yang pours every subtle conclusion about the mysterious reasons why people do what they do into this film and blends it together magnificently with beautiful, inventive and often appropriately symmetrical cinematography. It strikes a chord so loudly and so passionately that it is impossible to ignore.
What I didn't mention before when I described the film's final sequence is how I ended up crying when it finished. This is not meant to be a reason to see the film that is void of academic reasoning. I don't think that's really necessary. It is trying to put into a human context the raw power of Yi Yi and the miracles of life it so articulately expresses. Ultimately, though, I think it better epitomizes the powerful waves of sentiment that have rendered me (mostly) speechless, in spite of myself.
2000
10.0
I remember taking an advanced writing class in high school. While the curriculum was hardly what I would call 'advanced' I did pick up a few good pieces of advice about writing along the way. The first was out of Stephen King's book "On Writing", where he recommends only writing what you know. Its solid, yet kind of obvious advice. In an overly literal sense we can only write what we know since writing something that has never entered into our consciousness would be impossible. Still, its an essential step towards compelling and honest writing, if that's what you're interested in doing. If not you can be like Stephen King and write fictional horror stories (note: psychologically King writes what he knows, it just has a tendency to manifest itself in a grossly inordinate way). The other piece of advice I garnered from the course was to avoid writing about events that you are too emotionally attached to. This may seem kind of backwards but if you've ever read a 2 to 3 page essay by a high schooler on the recent death of a family member or friend, you'd know why. Emotion overpowers articulation. Sincerity overwhelms the scrupulous nature of good writing. Conversely, writing that is devoid of emotion, permanently detached, tends to be tedious. Striking a balance between the necessary amounts of separation and connection needed to aptly convey meaning is a formative task, but it's realization is often breathtaking.
Take Edward Yang's Yi Yi (A One and a Two): a brutally honest and unflinching portrayal of life as a whole. In just under 3 hours Yang shows happiness, strife, failure, success, modesty, arrogance, birth, death and so much more. What makes Yang's film stand out among so many other films whose narrative arcs are meant to mirror the arc of a human life is how sincere he is. In the film's memorable last scene, 8 year old Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang) stands before his recently deceased grandmother and tells her that when he grows up he wants to show people things they've never seen before. Off the lips of anyone else this comment would sound condescending, but in this case Yang-Yang's innocence is overwhelming. The significance of such a tender and beautifully orchestrated moment is that it is one of many, a part for the whole, in the film. Yang covers so much territory in this family epic from a mother (Elain Jin) distraught by the inconclusive redundancy of her adult life; a daughter (Kelly Lee) coping with adolescent disillusionment; a father (Nien-Jen Wu) reliving his past while trying simultaneously to move forward with his family and in his company; and a son (Chang) slowly discovering the grandeur of life. And these are simply the main characters. Like a great novelist Yang brings to life everyone who appears on screen and does not shy away from the realities of clashing egos and formidable heartbreak. The film features several fights and many moments of intensely affecting displays of emotion, be it screaming or crying. His spectrum is wide and his pallet is astonishingly diverse but Yang never once gets lost in his own attention to detail and his greater diligence towards emotional impact and paralyzing realism. The film is vibrant and self-aware from start to finish. Simply speaking it is glorious; a piece of cinema for which any number of words are completely superfluous.
There's a moment in the film between Ting-Ting (Lee) and a boy nick-named Fatty where they are discussing a movie they have just seen. Ting-Ting didn't like it because she thought it was too sad. Fatty points out that film is created so that we might see lives that do not run parallel to our own. With Yi Yi, Yang has accomplished a near impossible task: the perfect molding of the familiar and the foreign: what we can relate to and what excites us into a stupor the way only something we've never experienced before can. The pain and crushing weight of repetitious reality that the adults cope with, the aging of the elders who begin to see their own end, and the confusing and enlightening lives of children who wake up every day just to see what the world will show them next, is all presented with such magical truth that the epic begins to develop into something more than just a film. It ends up being a mirror of our own lives and how we construct them. Yang pours every subtle conclusion about the mysterious reasons why people do what they do into this film and blends it together magnificently with beautiful, inventive and often appropriately symmetrical cinematography. It strikes a chord so loudly and so passionately that it is impossible to ignore.
What I didn't mention before when I described the film's final sequence is how I ended up crying when it finished. This is not meant to be a reason to see the film that is void of academic reasoning. I don't think that's really necessary. It is trying to put into a human context the raw power of Yi Yi and the miracles of life it so articulately expresses. Ultimately, though, I think it better epitomizes the powerful waves of sentiment that have rendered me (mostly) speechless, in spite of myself.
Zodiac
Dir. David Fincher
2007
9.0
Films based on true stories are built on unstable ground and they have a nasty habit of being sensationalist pieces of star-studded non-fiction. While David Fincher's Zodiac fits this general description it can be ruled out of the stereotyped canon of murder mystery/crime dramas based on real events. Fincher's films tend to be highly stylized and blatantly metaphorical. Fight Club, Se7en and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are films that look amazing but lack the substance to make them much more than entertaining. In Zodiac Fincher removes a lot of the flash-bang cinematography for which he has become famous and inserts copious amounts of suspense and drama. With Zodiac Fincher has finally covered territory that is both thrilling and believable; intense and subtle. His characters aren't symbols (not literally, although the killer does call himself the Zodiac) and in detailing the process of a murder investigation that occurs over over 20 years, Fincher shows their degradation and fallibility. The frustration and bureaucracy that accompanies all police work, is sketched magnificently lending Zodiac an air of realism that makes the fact that it was based on a true story almost obsolete.
The genre of non-fiction in cinema often comes with the pretext of being authentic. It would seem the common opinion is “But its based on real life”. Unfortunately, in many cases, this becomes a justification for Hollywood to weave a more elaborate and less believable film than the historical scenario may actually have allowed (see: Saving Private Ryan, Valkyrie, Che, Into the Wild, etc. etc.). It is rarely a point of honesty, rather it is a device used to attract viewers. Films based on true stories are no more or less incredible because of the fact and sometimes suffer under the burden of the amount of information required to properly contextualize the film, including the classic post-narrative detailing how the story concludes. Zodiac doesn't entirely avoid this. At times the amount of detail is overbearing and the plot gets buried under scores of police chiefs, detectives, newspaper reporters and various other characters who add substance but also muddy the clarity of the film's intent. Then again, if Zodiac's goal was to mystify (the ending, after all, is inconclusive) then these moments, perhaps unintentionally, help assist that. Despite being distracting at times this obsession with detail is one of the film's only hindrances and is really a two way street as the details make each successive watching more captivating than the one before it.
The detail orientated nature of the script does not overpower the performances given by the actors in the film. Jake Gyllenhaal's good looks and even better character acting is employed for the part of Robert Graysmith, the San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist who wrote the book that the film is based on, and who, in lieu of conclusive evidence on the part of the police, becomes the main protagonist in the murder mystery. He plays alongside Robert Downey Jr. as drunken, solipsist writer Paul Avery at the same newspaper. Throw in Mark Ruffalo as detective Dave Toschi and you've already got most of what it takes to make an ego-driven Hollywood detective story. Only it isn't. It isn't because these three actors, and all the rest of the actors in the film know how to interact with each other and appear dutifully committed to the accurate portrayal of their characters. Herein lies the notable advantage to doing a non-fiction film: actors have fodder for their performances in physical and written form. They have the option of playing detective themselves and really digging into the history of the story. The cast manage the complicated scenario with admirable earnestness and ease. These said performances in conjunction with a thrilling and maze-like story is truly the full realization of the murder mystery sub genre of the larger non-fiction based crime drama. So many like-films have attempted to create a rich and compelling story but fail because of their devotion to spectacle over substance.
With Zodiac David Fincher has made a crime drama of the caliber of Silence of the Lambs. It is an eerie, disturbing who-done-it with a simple concept that is pushed to a remarkable extreme without ever becoming extravagant. In short, it is Fincher's most controlled and focused picture yet. While his upcoming projects, including two films based on graphic novels and a biopic about Eliot Ness, have all the earmarks of being in league with Fincher's more salient pictures, he has showed great potential as a well balanced film maker. Time will tell whether or not he will choose the path of lesser resistance. Commercial appeal and coolness are certainly enticing, but after proving his capacity as a director who can skew the obvious mechanisms of a dated genre and make it exciting and provocative, one can only hope that he will prove to be up to the challenge of making a film as good, or better, than Zodiac.
2007
9.0
Films based on true stories are built on unstable ground and they have a nasty habit of being sensationalist pieces of star-studded non-fiction. While David Fincher's Zodiac fits this general description it can be ruled out of the stereotyped canon of murder mystery/crime dramas based on real events. Fincher's films tend to be highly stylized and blatantly metaphorical. Fight Club, Se7en and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are films that look amazing but lack the substance to make them much more than entertaining. In Zodiac Fincher removes a lot of the flash-bang cinematography for which he has become famous and inserts copious amounts of suspense and drama. With Zodiac Fincher has finally covered territory that is both thrilling and believable; intense and subtle. His characters aren't symbols (not literally, although the killer does call himself the Zodiac) and in detailing the process of a murder investigation that occurs over over 20 years, Fincher shows their degradation and fallibility. The frustration and bureaucracy that accompanies all police work, is sketched magnificently lending Zodiac an air of realism that makes the fact that it was based on a true story almost obsolete.
The genre of non-fiction in cinema often comes with the pretext of being authentic. It would seem the common opinion is “But its based on real life”. Unfortunately, in many cases, this becomes a justification for Hollywood to weave a more elaborate and less believable film than the historical scenario may actually have allowed (see: Saving Private Ryan, Valkyrie, Che, Into the Wild, etc. etc.). It is rarely a point of honesty, rather it is a device used to attract viewers. Films based on true stories are no more or less incredible because of the fact and sometimes suffer under the burden of the amount of information required to properly contextualize the film, including the classic post-narrative detailing how the story concludes. Zodiac doesn't entirely avoid this. At times the amount of detail is overbearing and the plot gets buried under scores of police chiefs, detectives, newspaper reporters and various other characters who add substance but also muddy the clarity of the film's intent. Then again, if Zodiac's goal was to mystify (the ending, after all, is inconclusive) then these moments, perhaps unintentionally, help assist that. Despite being distracting at times this obsession with detail is one of the film's only hindrances and is really a two way street as the details make each successive watching more captivating than the one before it.
The detail orientated nature of the script does not overpower the performances given by the actors in the film. Jake Gyllenhaal's good looks and even better character acting is employed for the part of Robert Graysmith, the San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist who wrote the book that the film is based on, and who, in lieu of conclusive evidence on the part of the police, becomes the main protagonist in the murder mystery. He plays alongside Robert Downey Jr. as drunken, solipsist writer Paul Avery at the same newspaper. Throw in Mark Ruffalo as detective Dave Toschi and you've already got most of what it takes to make an ego-driven Hollywood detective story. Only it isn't. It isn't because these three actors, and all the rest of the actors in the film know how to interact with each other and appear dutifully committed to the accurate portrayal of their characters. Herein lies the notable advantage to doing a non-fiction film: actors have fodder for their performances in physical and written form. They have the option of playing detective themselves and really digging into the history of the story. The cast manage the complicated scenario with admirable earnestness and ease. These said performances in conjunction with a thrilling and maze-like story is truly the full realization of the murder mystery sub genre of the larger non-fiction based crime drama. So many like-films have attempted to create a rich and compelling story but fail because of their devotion to spectacle over substance.
With Zodiac David Fincher has made a crime drama of the caliber of Silence of the Lambs. It is an eerie, disturbing who-done-it with a simple concept that is pushed to a remarkable extreme without ever becoming extravagant. In short, it is Fincher's most controlled and focused picture yet. While his upcoming projects, including two films based on graphic novels and a biopic about Eliot Ness, have all the earmarks of being in league with Fincher's more salient pictures, he has showed great potential as a well balanced film maker. Time will tell whether or not he will choose the path of lesser resistance. Commercial appeal and coolness are certainly enticing, but after proving his capacity as a director who can skew the obvious mechanisms of a dated genre and make it exciting and provocative, one can only hope that he will prove to be up to the challenge of making a film as good, or better, than Zodiac.
The Wrestler
Dir. Darren Aronofsky
2008
8.3
Throughout the first part of Darren Aronofosky's latest film The Wrestler I couldn't help thinking about a film made 10 years ago: the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink, and how the majority of that film is devoted to lead character Barton's attempts at making a 'wrestling picture'. I kind of wonder if Aronofsky's film wouldn't be the modern realization of Barton's insinuated masterpiece, the difference being that The Wrestler is not kept under lock and key by a megalomaniac studio executive for it's “fruitiness” and abundance of “that Barton Fink feeling”. In place of said feeling is a different kind of feeling, but a similar perspective. An aging professional wrestler, Randy 'The Ram' Robinson (played superbly by Mickey Rourke), beaten down by life's daily tragedies makes one last attempt (or is it?) at reaching the perfection of his craft. At least that's the idea anyway. The lively and gigantic metaphor of struggle, appearance versus reality and the utterly depressing realization that life has a habit of moving forward without one's permission is what makes The Wrestler memorable but what also causes it, at various points, to falter under its own weight.
Roland Barthes wrote an essay about wrestling where he postulated (academics don't 'write' they 'postulate') that people who love wrestling love it because the outcome is predetermined, known long before the wrestlers begin to throw their weight around, and that, categorically, the line between good and evil is physically manifest in the two hulking masses in spandex. Most people would call that theatrics, but Barthes is not interested in the apathetic spectator, but rather the fan. In the film, Aronofsky does a competent job at playing down the false pretense under which so many wrestling matches take place, but this sentiment is at times painfully counteracted when he jibs the simulated intensity of the sport by showing lengthy conversations between various wrestlers about which moves will be used during their match, and promising not to go too hard on each other. He oscillates between trying to create a mockumentary of wrestling and desiring to make an emotionally engaging film. The emotionally engaging aspect mostly wins out, after The Ram's post-match heart attack leads him into complex set of emotions that occur only when a person is deprived the ability to do the one thing they know how to. The turn at this juncture leads the viewer down a dark, sad passage of the narrative where Randy seeks out love and finds failure and rejection. His relationship with his daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), is beyond repair; "broke" as she puts it so eloquently in one of the films most climactic and upsetting scenes. He courts a stripper, Cassidy/Pam (Marisa Tomei), who continuously refuses to accept her own feelings for him on the basis that he is a "customer" (at the strip club where she works), furthering the film's theme of conflicting dual existences and the subjectivity of reality. In the end Randy enters back into the only world he knows for what, we are meant to believe, is his final match. It is before this match that The Ram delivers one of the most poetic pieces of dialog written for the film. While Pam tries to convince him not to fight, citing his medical condition he brushes her off saying “The only place I can get hurt is out there”, referencing the world outside the ring that has all but left him behind. Its too bad that the entirety of the film isn't as subtle and moving as it's final sequence. It feels like Aronofsky saved all his credentials and aptitude for this scene and while it certainly succeeds in convincing the viewer of the authentic emotion behind one of the most contrived of spectacles, it doesn't entirely make up for the leaps and bounds of progress that brought us there.
When The Wrestler finished and Bruce Springsteen's “The Wrestler” began to play over the closing credits and the image of The Ram flying through the air towards what might be both his simultaneous victory (the match) and ultimate defeat (his death), I walked out to my car to drive home. When I started the engine Springsteen's “Racing in the Street” flooded out of my speakers and I couldn't help feeling that that song better captured the tone of The Wrestler than the song that bears its namesake. “Racing in the Street” is a nostalgic look back on a life spent in the carefree and daring world of street racing and the life that has blown by the singer in a blur of passion and loud motors. He, like The Ram, is left with just the overbearing memories of youth and highly localized fame. The Wrestler is a movie about the crushing reality of age and commitment to an art form. I think Roland Barthes would agree with my calling wrestling an art. For all it's cheap tricks and glossy, exaggerated appearance, wrestling is still profoundly important to some people. Aronofsky's intent may have been slightly contradictory at times but what he ultimately achieves is something between a life-size mock up of a fictional, iconic figure and an emotionally devastating portrayal of a defiant man in the shadow of defeat. The Wrestler shows how when something is truly important to a person, their entire life even, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference how sophisticated or widely accepted it is. It only matters that it exists for them and for those who share that same passion.
2008
8.3
Throughout the first part of Darren Aronofosky's latest film The Wrestler I couldn't help thinking about a film made 10 years ago: the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink, and how the majority of that film is devoted to lead character Barton's attempts at making a 'wrestling picture'. I kind of wonder if Aronofsky's film wouldn't be the modern realization of Barton's insinuated masterpiece, the difference being that The Wrestler is not kept under lock and key by a megalomaniac studio executive for it's “fruitiness” and abundance of “that Barton Fink feeling”. In place of said feeling is a different kind of feeling, but a similar perspective. An aging professional wrestler, Randy 'The Ram' Robinson (played superbly by Mickey Rourke), beaten down by life's daily tragedies makes one last attempt (or is it?) at reaching the perfection of his craft. At least that's the idea anyway. The lively and gigantic metaphor of struggle, appearance versus reality and the utterly depressing realization that life has a habit of moving forward without one's permission is what makes The Wrestler memorable but what also causes it, at various points, to falter under its own weight.
Roland Barthes wrote an essay about wrestling where he postulated (academics don't 'write' they 'postulate') that people who love wrestling love it because the outcome is predetermined, known long before the wrestlers begin to throw their weight around, and that, categorically, the line between good and evil is physically manifest in the two hulking masses in spandex. Most people would call that theatrics, but Barthes is not interested in the apathetic spectator, but rather the fan. In the film, Aronofsky does a competent job at playing down the false pretense under which so many wrestling matches take place, but this sentiment is at times painfully counteracted when he jibs the simulated intensity of the sport by showing lengthy conversations between various wrestlers about which moves will be used during their match, and promising not to go too hard on each other. He oscillates between trying to create a mockumentary of wrestling and desiring to make an emotionally engaging film. The emotionally engaging aspect mostly wins out, after The Ram's post-match heart attack leads him into complex set of emotions that occur only when a person is deprived the ability to do the one thing they know how to. The turn at this juncture leads the viewer down a dark, sad passage of the narrative where Randy seeks out love and finds failure and rejection. His relationship with his daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), is beyond repair; "broke" as she puts it so eloquently in one of the films most climactic and upsetting scenes. He courts a stripper, Cassidy/Pam (Marisa Tomei), who continuously refuses to accept her own feelings for him on the basis that he is a "customer" (at the strip club where she works), furthering the film's theme of conflicting dual existences and the subjectivity of reality. In the end Randy enters back into the only world he knows for what, we are meant to believe, is his final match. It is before this match that The Ram delivers one of the most poetic pieces of dialog written for the film. While Pam tries to convince him not to fight, citing his medical condition he brushes her off saying “The only place I can get hurt is out there”, referencing the world outside the ring that has all but left him behind. Its too bad that the entirety of the film isn't as subtle and moving as it's final sequence. It feels like Aronofsky saved all his credentials and aptitude for this scene and while it certainly succeeds in convincing the viewer of the authentic emotion behind one of the most contrived of spectacles, it doesn't entirely make up for the leaps and bounds of progress that brought us there.
When The Wrestler finished and Bruce Springsteen's “The Wrestler” began to play over the closing credits and the image of The Ram flying through the air towards what might be both his simultaneous victory (the match) and ultimate defeat (his death), I walked out to my car to drive home. When I started the engine Springsteen's “Racing in the Street” flooded out of my speakers and I couldn't help feeling that that song better captured the tone of The Wrestler than the song that bears its namesake. “Racing in the Street” is a nostalgic look back on a life spent in the carefree and daring world of street racing and the life that has blown by the singer in a blur of passion and loud motors. He, like The Ram, is left with just the overbearing memories of youth and highly localized fame. The Wrestler is a movie about the crushing reality of age and commitment to an art form. I think Roland Barthes would agree with my calling wrestling an art. For all it's cheap tricks and glossy, exaggerated appearance, wrestling is still profoundly important to some people. Aronofsky's intent may have been slightly contradictory at times but what he ultimately achieves is something between a life-size mock up of a fictional, iconic figure and an emotionally devastating portrayal of a defiant man in the shadow of defeat. The Wrestler shows how when something is truly important to a person, their entire life even, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference how sophisticated or widely accepted it is. It only matters that it exists for them and for those who share that same passion.
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Dir. Carl Dreyer
1928
n/a
I was raised a Christian, a Catholic no less, but I turned out OK (I guess that's a matter of opinion). I went through all the motions straight up through my Catechism where I was supposed to enter into the church as an adult. I chose not to. My ability to string along with the false piety (or worse: enviable exuberance) of my fellow young Christians failed me. I have one rather strong, distressing memory of my Catechism. We met each week on Sunday nights in small groups. We mostly read the Bible, discussed our faith and wasted time. On this night though our stand-in teacher posed a discriminating and frightful question. Making reference to the school shootings at Columbine High School and the rumor that one of the shooters had put a gun to a student's head and asked him if he believed in God and when he answered “Yes”, shot and killed the student, the teacher asked us what we would have done in that same scenario knowing a 'Yes' would end our life and a 'No' might save it, at the potential cost of our soul. As the pious and lazy youth swung their affirmation around the room the question came to me. I replied that I wouldn't; that I would want to live. I've wrangled with this situation for many years, trying to figure out why I answered the way I did. Was it because I actually don't believe in God? Was it because I am selfish? Was it because I wanted to make a scene? To this day I don't know, but years in the church have familiarized me with the psychological atrocities inflicted by those with piety and power. History books will tell of the Crusades and millions of deaths in the name of God, but, as Joan (Renee Jeanne Falconetti) in The Passion of Joan of Arc illustrates so clearly, it can be just as painful to live in the midst of a lie, as it is to die because of one.
The Passion of Joan of Arc chronicles the trial and subsequent execution of Joan of Arc. It is one of the most excruciatingly painful film experiences ever witnessed, as Joan undergoes significant amounts of physical and psychological torture by a body of theologians and cruel guardsmen. The theologians are outraged at Joan's conviction that she has been sent by God to expel the English from France. They are contemptuous of her because they are threatened by her dignity and the fact that she is a woman who claims to be doing God's work. Director Carl Dreyer captures the intensity of the event through studious use of close ups which highlight the exquisite (and sometimes revolting) facial expressions employed by his actors, especially Falconetti. Her performance stands apart from the rest of the film and in many respects the rest of the film world. Her passion is unbound and her sentiments so perfectly articulated that she does simply capture Joan of Arc, she is Joan of Arc. There are few performances as convincing and even fewer as powerful as Falconetti's, which would be her second and final appearance on the silver screen.
With The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer designed a complex and uncomfortable scenario. Apocryphal and hypocritical ardor is not uncommon, but it is difficult subject to deal with. Dreyer makes his theologians look ugly (extreme closeups of their faces reveal wrinkles and warts) and immature (they question why Joan is dressed in men's clothing), but they are in a position of power, so these outwardly degrading features do nothing in the favor of Joan's cause. This scenario still exists today and is a prominent reason as to why The Passion of Joan of Arc is still, and will likely always be, a truly timeless piece of cinema. Far too often, in the church, priests and worshipers of God will use God as the vessel in which to transmit their own messages on morality and faith, rather than the other way around (see: Pope Benedict's recent statements equating the dangers of homosexuality to those of deforestation). They believe themselves to be pious, but outwardly betray that dogma by using subversive tactics to influence the church-going community. Threats of excommunication, torture and death abound from the shouting mouths of the priests and monks in The Passion of Joan of Arc. And why? So that she might renounce her claim of being the daughter of God. All that hate in order to defeat one woman's selfless faith in God.
While Dreyer's religious epic is slightly more recondite than my own traumatic experiences in the church, the principle is much the same. The Christian faith was based on a solid foundation but the structure that has been built on top of that foundation is far too often ugly and useless; cruel to the point of savagery. His film captures the church in one of its most insightfully brutal moments, branding it with a stamp of malice. The final moments of the film are dreadfully powerful. The screen is full of images of fire and violence, the terrifying end to those who have failed to live by their own rhetoric. The film supplies a post script with a brief tribute to Joan of Arc, telling how the fire shielded Joan's soul as it soared into Heaven that day. Whether or not this is true is not for us to know. That is just for Joan.
1928
n/a
I was raised a Christian, a Catholic no less, but I turned out OK (I guess that's a matter of opinion). I went through all the motions straight up through my Catechism where I was supposed to enter into the church as an adult. I chose not to. My ability to string along with the false piety (or worse: enviable exuberance) of my fellow young Christians failed me. I have one rather strong, distressing memory of my Catechism. We met each week on Sunday nights in small groups. We mostly read the Bible, discussed our faith and wasted time. On this night though our stand-in teacher posed a discriminating and frightful question. Making reference to the school shootings at Columbine High School and the rumor that one of the shooters had put a gun to a student's head and asked him if he believed in God and when he answered “Yes”, shot and killed the student, the teacher asked us what we would have done in that same scenario knowing a 'Yes' would end our life and a 'No' might save it, at the potential cost of our soul. As the pious and lazy youth swung their affirmation around the room the question came to me. I replied that I wouldn't; that I would want to live. I've wrangled with this situation for many years, trying to figure out why I answered the way I did. Was it because I actually don't believe in God? Was it because I am selfish? Was it because I wanted to make a scene? To this day I don't know, but years in the church have familiarized me with the psychological atrocities inflicted by those with piety and power. History books will tell of the Crusades and millions of deaths in the name of God, but, as Joan (Renee Jeanne Falconetti) in The Passion of Joan of Arc illustrates so clearly, it can be just as painful to live in the midst of a lie, as it is to die because of one.
The Passion of Joan of Arc chronicles the trial and subsequent execution of Joan of Arc. It is one of the most excruciatingly painful film experiences ever witnessed, as Joan undergoes significant amounts of physical and psychological torture by a body of theologians and cruel guardsmen. The theologians are outraged at Joan's conviction that she has been sent by God to expel the English from France. They are contemptuous of her because they are threatened by her dignity and the fact that she is a woman who claims to be doing God's work. Director Carl Dreyer captures the intensity of the event through studious use of close ups which highlight the exquisite (and sometimes revolting) facial expressions employed by his actors, especially Falconetti. Her performance stands apart from the rest of the film and in many respects the rest of the film world. Her passion is unbound and her sentiments so perfectly articulated that she does simply capture Joan of Arc, she is Joan of Arc. There are few performances as convincing and even fewer as powerful as Falconetti's, which would be her second and final appearance on the silver screen.
With The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer designed a complex and uncomfortable scenario. Apocryphal and hypocritical ardor is not uncommon, but it is difficult subject to deal with. Dreyer makes his theologians look ugly (extreme closeups of their faces reveal wrinkles and warts) and immature (they question why Joan is dressed in men's clothing), but they are in a position of power, so these outwardly degrading features do nothing in the favor of Joan's cause. This scenario still exists today and is a prominent reason as to why The Passion of Joan of Arc is still, and will likely always be, a truly timeless piece of cinema. Far too often, in the church, priests and worshipers of God will use God as the vessel in which to transmit their own messages on morality and faith, rather than the other way around (see: Pope Benedict's recent statements equating the dangers of homosexuality to those of deforestation). They believe themselves to be pious, but outwardly betray that dogma by using subversive tactics to influence the church-going community. Threats of excommunication, torture and death abound from the shouting mouths of the priests and monks in The Passion of Joan of Arc. And why? So that she might renounce her claim of being the daughter of God. All that hate in order to defeat one woman's selfless faith in God.
While Dreyer's religious epic is slightly more recondite than my own traumatic experiences in the church, the principle is much the same. The Christian faith was based on a solid foundation but the structure that has been built on top of that foundation is far too often ugly and useless; cruel to the point of savagery. His film captures the church in one of its most insightfully brutal moments, branding it with a stamp of malice. The final moments of the film are dreadfully powerful. The screen is full of images of fire and violence, the terrifying end to those who have failed to live by their own rhetoric. The film supplies a post script with a brief tribute to Joan of Arc, telling how the fire shielded Joan's soul as it soared into Heaven that day. Whether or not this is true is not for us to know. That is just for Joan.
L'Atalante
Dir. Jean Vigo
1934
n/a
Some marriages are not built to last. Some might claim that this is because a human being's psychologically programmed first priority is reproduction and monogamy goes against that instinct. I think it is a bit more complicated than that. Romance is like an intense friendship. For instance, you may find that you really enjoy spending time with a person but cannot tolerate living with them. This is because upon living with them you discover a whole new set of characteristics, both good and bad, that you wouldn't have otherwise known about. It is also invasive if you're the type of person who needs private space and time to your self. Some marriages come too early and the couple finds that all the luxuries they had in being just a couple are lost upon entering into matrimony. Couples have their own conceptions of what their union will be like and how perfect it will be that are often times unrealistic in relation to their present situation. Jean Vigo's L'Atalante is a study in what makes a marriage work, but more importantly what makes it fall apart at the seams. It is a piece by piece dissection of what keeps us together and drives us apart, and the more that occasional futility of romance.
Jean (Jean Daste) and Juliette (Dita Parlo) have just been married. The stage is set for disappointment as it becomes clear that Juliette's primary reason for marrying Jean was so she could flee her hometown aboard L'Atalante, Jean's cargo vessel. They are joined by the kind idiot Papa Jules (Michel Simon) and 'the kid' (Louis Lefebvre). Trouble stirs early in the delusive paradise as Jean has a habit of flying into nasty, uncontrollably jealous rages whenever he sees his lovely bride being sought after by another man. It is here that Vigo puts on display an irony as old as time: Jean's jealousy extends from his love for and adoration of Juliette, but the way it manifests itself ultimately drives her away. In his madness he demands that the ship move forward, leaving Juliette behind, just offshore.
It is at this point where the physical movement of characters and their actions become a grand metaphor for subconscious desires. Both Jean and Juliette flee. The two feel trapped, in separate ways. Juliette wants to see Paris, which follows her pattern of wanting something larger and more intriguing for herself. Jean is a naturally independent and aggressive young man who doesn't like to be proved wrong by anyone, much less his new bride. It is not long before the two reconcile their differences, albeit not by any kind of mutual sacrifice. Instead they become overwhelmed by disillusionment in regards to what they thought they wanted and thus settle on second-rate pleasure. The film is cyclical in that sense: it ends with the two embracing and laughing, but it leaves the viewer unsure of whether or not this is a good thing. One could easily imagine the two being happy (again) for a few days, and then becoming unstable and depressive (again); falling into the same pattern of leaving and coming back, leaving and coming back.
L'Atalante is about tumultuous love and is largely upsetting in that regard. Its ending is irresolute although the highly poetic style of French romance largely undercuts this effect. The assured and ecstatic faces of the two lovers don't completely quell the inborn insecurity about whether or not Jules and Juliette will ever be completely happy. What makes this film rare is that this question of durability in romance is hardly ever posed in cinema. How many millions of romantic relationships have blossomed on the silver screen and how often does the viewer ever trouble him or herself with the nagging questions about the longevity of love? It's not that this form of romance is cheap; it's what people want to see: unquestionable, inalienable happiness. What is discomforting is that we come to expect what we see on the screen to be true to life as well, but, as anyone who's ever had a failed romance can tell you, it is a bit more complicated than that. Vigo captures that natural contradiction of 'good enough' love in L'Atalante, as well as the marked absence of simplicity. He proposes that love can be as much a struggle as a vacation (if not a lot more). It happens that some people can't see the trip for the travel, only the destination, which is not always where they expected. In short: you can call a cargo ship a luxury yacht, but that alone won't make it true.
1934
n/a
Some marriages are not built to last. Some might claim that this is because a human being's psychologically programmed first priority is reproduction and monogamy goes against that instinct. I think it is a bit more complicated than that. Romance is like an intense friendship. For instance, you may find that you really enjoy spending time with a person but cannot tolerate living with them. This is because upon living with them you discover a whole new set of characteristics, both good and bad, that you wouldn't have otherwise known about. It is also invasive if you're the type of person who needs private space and time to your self. Some marriages come too early and the couple finds that all the luxuries they had in being just a couple are lost upon entering into matrimony. Couples have their own conceptions of what their union will be like and how perfect it will be that are often times unrealistic in relation to their present situation. Jean Vigo's L'Atalante is a study in what makes a marriage work, but more importantly what makes it fall apart at the seams. It is a piece by piece dissection of what keeps us together and drives us apart, and the more that occasional futility of romance.
Jean (Jean Daste) and Juliette (Dita Parlo) have just been married. The stage is set for disappointment as it becomes clear that Juliette's primary reason for marrying Jean was so she could flee her hometown aboard L'Atalante, Jean's cargo vessel. They are joined by the kind idiot Papa Jules (Michel Simon) and 'the kid' (Louis Lefebvre). Trouble stirs early in the delusive paradise as Jean has a habit of flying into nasty, uncontrollably jealous rages whenever he sees his lovely bride being sought after by another man. It is here that Vigo puts on display an irony as old as time: Jean's jealousy extends from his love for and adoration of Juliette, but the way it manifests itself ultimately drives her away. In his madness he demands that the ship move forward, leaving Juliette behind, just offshore.
It is at this point where the physical movement of characters and their actions become a grand metaphor for subconscious desires. Both Jean and Juliette flee. The two feel trapped, in separate ways. Juliette wants to see Paris, which follows her pattern of wanting something larger and more intriguing for herself. Jean is a naturally independent and aggressive young man who doesn't like to be proved wrong by anyone, much less his new bride. It is not long before the two reconcile their differences, albeit not by any kind of mutual sacrifice. Instead they become overwhelmed by disillusionment in regards to what they thought they wanted and thus settle on second-rate pleasure. The film is cyclical in that sense: it ends with the two embracing and laughing, but it leaves the viewer unsure of whether or not this is a good thing. One could easily imagine the two being happy (again) for a few days, and then becoming unstable and depressive (again); falling into the same pattern of leaving and coming back, leaving and coming back.
L'Atalante is about tumultuous love and is largely upsetting in that regard. Its ending is irresolute although the highly poetic style of French romance largely undercuts this effect. The assured and ecstatic faces of the two lovers don't completely quell the inborn insecurity about whether or not Jules and Juliette will ever be completely happy. What makes this film rare is that this question of durability in romance is hardly ever posed in cinema. How many millions of romantic relationships have blossomed on the silver screen and how often does the viewer ever trouble him or herself with the nagging questions about the longevity of love? It's not that this form of romance is cheap; it's what people want to see: unquestionable, inalienable happiness. What is discomforting is that we come to expect what we see on the screen to be true to life as well, but, as anyone who's ever had a failed romance can tell you, it is a bit more complicated than that. Vigo captures that natural contradiction of 'good enough' love in L'Atalante, as well as the marked absence of simplicity. He proposes that love can be as much a struggle as a vacation (if not a lot more). It happens that some people can't see the trip for the travel, only the destination, which is not always where they expected. In short: you can call a cargo ship a luxury yacht, but that alone won't make it true.
Battleship Potemkin
Dir. Sergei Eisenstein
1925
n/a
Battleship Potemkin is a spiritual film. Not spiritual in the religious sense but rather in a universally human way. Spirituality is not confined to the church or the temple. It extends over all people who look to something larger than themselves for inspiration and guidance. If history is any indication, the spirit is often inversely related to the quality of life. The more a man is oppressed, the greater his commitment to himself and his fellow man becomes. The triumph comes when the defeat of the body is near. Battleship Potemkin is about just that. It demonstrates the nobility of the persecuted man's soul and the power that says “No” to the muzzle of a loaded gun. More than anything though it is a stunning piece of propaganda, and is as much a tribute to genuine emotion as it is to inventive, manipulative film making.
The thing about being manipulated is that no one ever wants to admit that they are or have been, probably because so few people realize they're being used or persuaded. That's propaganda at its very best (see: the relentlessness of modern advertising and it's effects on purchasing trends). However, Battleship Potemkin is not full up on affectations of sincerity, in fact it can't afford to be. Director Sergei Eisenstein draws on a largely historical event (the revolt on the battleship Potemkin) with elements of fiction (the massacre on the Odessa steps) mixed in to make a cinematic melting pot of emotion. In such a stew Eisenstein's revolutionary use of montage to increase audience reaction is the spice that enhances the intensity of the film's emotive core, rather than counter-act it. This is a delicate equilibrium. Had Eisenstein gone too heavy on the 'glorious revolution' imagery his intent would have been transparent and likely met by skepticism and cynicism in his audience. However, too light and the film would have been an un-affecting war film about revolution, rather than what it is: a revolutionary film about war. Eisenstein poured all his heart and technical prowess into this film and the end result is a masterpiece of cinema: a completely engaging spectacle who's intensity builds exponentially as the film progresses towards its ultimate, ennobling conclusion.
Battleship Potemkin is revolutionary both in content and in context. Upon it's premier it was banned in several countries for it's risk as a potential inflamer of serious uprising, which is an accurate understanding of the power of the film. Having lived in Russia until the mid 1920s, since his birth on the eve of the 20th century, Eisenstein surely understood the rallying power of propaganda. His methods were innovative, his medium new and excited, but his message was one chiseled into the stone of human history. Wherever there is tyranny there will be men who can draw the oppressed together. In one of the film's most memorable scenes a crew of 'petty officers' is about to fire upon a group of dissenters, tired of the poor living conditions on the vessel, when a sailor, Vakulynchuk, yells “Brothers! Who are you shooting at?” whereupon the ship's crew begins it's revolt against the exalted and insolent higher officers. The intensity of this scene is blood-boiling. The score screams with trumpets and strings as the camera bounces from face to face, tips of rifles to butts of crosses, fear to determination. What must happen happens, and the relatively small revolt aboard the battleship escalates and spreads. Eisenstein's visual interpretation of revolution is both highly accurate and highly condensed in order to create the largest impact. In that respect he was not only a great artist of propaganda, but a great filmmaker as well. His timing throughout the film is immaculate. The pacing is rigorous, but the idea is simple enough to not require extraneous amounts of explanation. In fact the arc of the narrative from the initial dissent to the joining of fellow brothers-in-arms is surprisingly predictable. This works heavily in Eisenstein's favor, as the understanding of the narrative on the part of the audience allows him the opportunity to influence and shape the perception of the revolutionary spirit that he is portraying. It is that spirit that Eisenstein captures so magnificently that ultimately makes the film as impressive and incisive as it is. Spirituality is something everyone, despite difference of religion and upbringing, can believe in if they choose to. And if they don't, chances are they can be convinced to.
1925
n/a
Battleship Potemkin is a spiritual film. Not spiritual in the religious sense but rather in a universally human way. Spirituality is not confined to the church or the temple. It extends over all people who look to something larger than themselves for inspiration and guidance. If history is any indication, the spirit is often inversely related to the quality of life. The more a man is oppressed, the greater his commitment to himself and his fellow man becomes. The triumph comes when the defeat of the body is near. Battleship Potemkin is about just that. It demonstrates the nobility of the persecuted man's soul and the power that says “No” to the muzzle of a loaded gun. More than anything though it is a stunning piece of propaganda, and is as much a tribute to genuine emotion as it is to inventive, manipulative film making.
The thing about being manipulated is that no one ever wants to admit that they are or have been, probably because so few people realize they're being used or persuaded. That's propaganda at its very best (see: the relentlessness of modern advertising and it's effects on purchasing trends). However, Battleship Potemkin is not full up on affectations of sincerity, in fact it can't afford to be. Director Sergei Eisenstein draws on a largely historical event (the revolt on the battleship Potemkin) with elements of fiction (the massacre on the Odessa steps) mixed in to make a cinematic melting pot of emotion. In such a stew Eisenstein's revolutionary use of montage to increase audience reaction is the spice that enhances the intensity of the film's emotive core, rather than counter-act it. This is a delicate equilibrium. Had Eisenstein gone too heavy on the 'glorious revolution' imagery his intent would have been transparent and likely met by skepticism and cynicism in his audience. However, too light and the film would have been an un-affecting war film about revolution, rather than what it is: a revolutionary film about war. Eisenstein poured all his heart and technical prowess into this film and the end result is a masterpiece of cinema: a completely engaging spectacle who's intensity builds exponentially as the film progresses towards its ultimate, ennobling conclusion.
Battleship Potemkin is revolutionary both in content and in context. Upon it's premier it was banned in several countries for it's risk as a potential inflamer of serious uprising, which is an accurate understanding of the power of the film. Having lived in Russia until the mid 1920s, since his birth on the eve of the 20th century, Eisenstein surely understood the rallying power of propaganda. His methods were innovative, his medium new and excited, but his message was one chiseled into the stone of human history. Wherever there is tyranny there will be men who can draw the oppressed together. In one of the film's most memorable scenes a crew of 'petty officers' is about to fire upon a group of dissenters, tired of the poor living conditions on the vessel, when a sailor, Vakulynchuk, yells “Brothers! Who are you shooting at?” whereupon the ship's crew begins it's revolt against the exalted and insolent higher officers. The intensity of this scene is blood-boiling. The score screams with trumpets and strings as the camera bounces from face to face, tips of rifles to butts of crosses, fear to determination. What must happen happens, and the relatively small revolt aboard the battleship escalates and spreads. Eisenstein's visual interpretation of revolution is both highly accurate and highly condensed in order to create the largest impact. In that respect he was not only a great artist of propaganda, but a great filmmaker as well. His timing throughout the film is immaculate. The pacing is rigorous, but the idea is simple enough to not require extraneous amounts of explanation. In fact the arc of the narrative from the initial dissent to the joining of fellow brothers-in-arms is surprisingly predictable. This works heavily in Eisenstein's favor, as the understanding of the narrative on the part of the audience allows him the opportunity to influence and shape the perception of the revolutionary spirit that he is portraying. It is that spirit that Eisenstein captures so magnificently that ultimately makes the film as impressive and incisive as it is. Spirituality is something everyone, despite difference of religion and upbringing, can believe in if they choose to. And if they don't, chances are they can be convinced to.
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Dir. F.W. Murnau
1927
n/a
The first silent film I ever saw was Fritz Lang's terrifying, post-apocalyptic Metropolis. Even as a relatively well watched movie enthusiast, I had my reservations about silent films. I figured they'd be slow and methodical; boring and terribly linear. I was proved wrong then and in watching F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans I have been proved wrong again. What the great silent films of the teens and twenties lacked in their audio tracks (which hardly lack considering the air progressiveness and sensitivity in the musical scores of both Metropolis and Sunrise) they make up for in their visual inventiveness and superb understanding of dramatic structure. One might argue that the medium does not dictate the quality of a product, and this is true but only to a certain extent. Without being able to communicate through words directly to their audience, actors had to utilize a more theatrical style of acting so that their actions could replace their unheard words. Directors had to paint a crystal clear picture, without precarious over-simplification, so that the viewer didn't spend half the film looking at title cards. Still, the silent era was not all limiting. Directors like Murnau rose to the challenge of making insightful and provocative pictures while pushing the boundaries of visual aesthetics in the formative early years of cinema.
Sunrise is haunting. It is a tale of the corrupting and revitalizing power of love. It is about the triumph of good over evil and the tranquility of acceptance. The film follows a simple farmer's (George O'Brien) initial attempt to murder his wife (Janet Gaynor) in order to run off to the city with another woman (Margaret Livingston), and his subsequent failure to do so. It chronicles his attempts to prove his love for her and repent for his sinful ways. He follows her into the nearby city where the two are swept up in the fervor and rejoicing of a night on the town. Along the way Murnau uses both subtle and radical cinematic tools to present the man and woman as being two apart from the glamor and sophistication of the city. The woman and man both act in simple and naïve ways. The woman shyly avoids the sexual come-ons of a stranger, while the man pays for all his expenses not out of a wallet, but a small change purse. Cinematically, Murnau appropriates a tactic of superimposing two visuals (and in many scenes two disparate audio tracks) on top of one another to further the metaphorical separation of the country and city folk. The city is presented as a sensational, opulent carnival complete with fireworks, roller coasters, music, dancing and noise noise noise that would drive the Grinch, were he present for all of it, fucking crazy. It is absurd to the point of satire. In one particularly disheartening but brilliant scene the city people have the man and woman dance to a “folk tune” after the man successfully captures an escaped and drunken pig. The couple move in a way that is a far cry from the shake and jive of the city's take on the swinging jazz big band era. The funny thing is that while the rift is very real and visible, the man and woman seem to either not notice it, or take no offense to it. I am supposing the latter. The two are in love and as anyone who's really been in love before can tell you: when you're in it you just can't be bothered to give a damn about anything else.
Sunrise is a powerhouse of romance and histrionics. It is paramount piece of dramatic cinema and one of the best of the comparatively short lived silent era. Murnau brings together a wide range of tricks, skills and genuine inspiration to create a perfect pastiche. It is a film whose narrative fluidity is never disturbed by the seismic emotional quakes that occur throughout. It tugs you along by your heart strings and plucks and mutes them tenderly, creating a regular symphony of emotive affections, from bitter to cathartic. The film paints a vivid picture of love and redemption and does so without the pretense that causes so many other films to fail. It is a complex picture of devotion and seduction and how one can counteract the other, but most of all it is a film about appreciating what has always been there for you and never forgetting what attracted you to it in the first place. Sunrise is love in 90 minutes.
1927
n/a
The first silent film I ever saw was Fritz Lang's terrifying, post-apocalyptic Metropolis. Even as a relatively well watched movie enthusiast, I had my reservations about silent films. I figured they'd be slow and methodical; boring and terribly linear. I was proved wrong then and in watching F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans I have been proved wrong again. What the great silent films of the teens and twenties lacked in their audio tracks (which hardly lack considering the air progressiveness and sensitivity in the musical scores of both Metropolis and Sunrise) they make up for in their visual inventiveness and superb understanding of dramatic structure. One might argue that the medium does not dictate the quality of a product, and this is true but only to a certain extent. Without being able to communicate through words directly to their audience, actors had to utilize a more theatrical style of acting so that their actions could replace their unheard words. Directors had to paint a crystal clear picture, without precarious over-simplification, so that the viewer didn't spend half the film looking at title cards. Still, the silent era was not all limiting. Directors like Murnau rose to the challenge of making insightful and provocative pictures while pushing the boundaries of visual aesthetics in the formative early years of cinema.
Sunrise is haunting. It is a tale of the corrupting and revitalizing power of love. It is about the triumph of good over evil and the tranquility of acceptance. The film follows a simple farmer's (George O'Brien) initial attempt to murder his wife (Janet Gaynor) in order to run off to the city with another woman (Margaret Livingston), and his subsequent failure to do so. It chronicles his attempts to prove his love for her and repent for his sinful ways. He follows her into the nearby city where the two are swept up in the fervor and rejoicing of a night on the town. Along the way Murnau uses both subtle and radical cinematic tools to present the man and woman as being two apart from the glamor and sophistication of the city. The woman and man both act in simple and naïve ways. The woman shyly avoids the sexual come-ons of a stranger, while the man pays for all his expenses not out of a wallet, but a small change purse. Cinematically, Murnau appropriates a tactic of superimposing two visuals (and in many scenes two disparate audio tracks) on top of one another to further the metaphorical separation of the country and city folk. The city is presented as a sensational, opulent carnival complete with fireworks, roller coasters, music, dancing and noise noise noise that would drive the Grinch, were he present for all of it, fucking crazy. It is absurd to the point of satire. In one particularly disheartening but brilliant scene the city people have the man and woman dance to a “folk tune” after the man successfully captures an escaped and drunken pig. The couple move in a way that is a far cry from the shake and jive of the city's take on the swinging jazz big band era. The funny thing is that while the rift is very real and visible, the man and woman seem to either not notice it, or take no offense to it. I am supposing the latter. The two are in love and as anyone who's really been in love before can tell you: when you're in it you just can't be bothered to give a damn about anything else.
Sunrise is a powerhouse of romance and histrionics. It is paramount piece of dramatic cinema and one of the best of the comparatively short lived silent era. Murnau brings together a wide range of tricks, skills and genuine inspiration to create a perfect pastiche. It is a film whose narrative fluidity is never disturbed by the seismic emotional quakes that occur throughout. It tugs you along by your heart strings and plucks and mutes them tenderly, creating a regular symphony of emotive affections, from bitter to cathartic. The film paints a vivid picture of love and redemption and does so without the pretense that causes so many other films to fail. It is a complex picture of devotion and seduction and how one can counteract the other, but most of all it is a film about appreciating what has always been there for you and never forgetting what attracted you to it in the first place. Sunrise is love in 90 minutes.
City Lights
Dir. Charles Chaplin
1931
n/a
There is something remarkably sexy about Charlie Chaplin. His appearance: small, goofy, and slightly androgynous, all qualities that run counter to conventional sex appeal, and peculiar mannerisms cause him to stand apart from the sleek and toned ideals of beauty. The thing is that Chaplin is just so damn talented. Its like how even a weird looking boy who plays guitar and sings can be appealing to the prettiest of girls. Only with Chaplin, rather than playing guitar, its being a jack of all trades. Chaplin writes, produces, directs, stars in, and composes the music for many of his most memorable films including City Lights. He's like a comedic Orson Welles, before he got fat. Its not just that Chaplin is funny. Plenty of people before and after him have been funny. Its how he harmonizes dramatic and comedic elements in his films; a mix of slapstick and profound romanticism. Its how the tramp's naive good intentions never seem to coalesce with the world he inhabits, yet he always manages to do alright in the end. More than alright in fact. He emerges victorious, always with that distinctly memorable grin on his face.
Chaplin's films are not just comedies. Often times they house within their frames an astonishingly timeless social critique. Modern Times poignantly showed a man pitted against a rigorously mechanical society that is unforgiving to the point of cruelty. In The Gold Rush he unveiled the shocking degree to which people allow themselves to be immoral in the pursuit of riches. City Lights is a hilarious farce that pokes fun at the lives of the rich while simultaneously exposing their mistreatment of the poor. As in most of his films, Chaplin juxtaposes his frail, clumsy and unappealing body with giants and beauties. He is pummeled in a wrestling ring, slapped around by men in tails, and patiently loved by a blind beauty. All the while he is getting himself mixed up in trouble with an “eccentric”, drunken millionaire who's polarized lifestyle of being a friendly drunk and a cold, sober aristocrat invites a myriad of occasions for the tramp to confuse the two. City Lights moves along at a frenzied pace, thanks only in part to the naturally fast paced cinematography of old films. The highly choreographed segments of many of the film's scenes are stunning, and its amazing to think how much of these stunts and acrobatics Chaplin and company did in the time before digital studio effects. Chaplin's dedication to laughable but nonetheless impressive choreography is one of many qualities that keeps City Lights delightfully entertaining every step of the way.
Chaplin's stage persona, the little tramp, is one of the most recognizable and memorable characters the silver screen has ever produced. Case in point: last month, as a means to pass the last few days at school, my dad (a middle school music teacher) showed his classes segments of Modern Times. He was shocked. The kids not only paid attention to the film (a rare occasion for any group of middle schoolers) but found themselves bursting out into laughter during many of the film's wilder moments. Conversely, an older friend told me of a disastrous experience trying to show Citizen Kane to the Freshman English class she teaches. Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles are certainly of comparable genius, but not of medium. Plenty of people want to have their emotions and thoughts prodded and provoked, but everyone wants to laugh.
Every so often an artist comes around who taps into something universal. If their body of work is focused enough they often come to represent something much larger than themselves. Chaplin is the original romantic comedian and that's why he's sexy. Few men in the last 100 years have been able to parade themselves about so foolishly and for so many people, and still be as appealing as Charlie Chaplin. It should be noted that in no way is Chaplin an idiot-savant. He knew how funny and how charming he was; his confidence is what made his films so successful. To this day no actor (with the possible exception of John Wayne) is more widely recognized for his unique appearance, remarkable stage presence and the quality of his films than that mustachioed tramp: Charlie Chaplin.
1931
n/a
There is something remarkably sexy about Charlie Chaplin. His appearance: small, goofy, and slightly androgynous, all qualities that run counter to conventional sex appeal, and peculiar mannerisms cause him to stand apart from the sleek and toned ideals of beauty. The thing is that Chaplin is just so damn talented. Its like how even a weird looking boy who plays guitar and sings can be appealing to the prettiest of girls. Only with Chaplin, rather than playing guitar, its being a jack of all trades. Chaplin writes, produces, directs, stars in, and composes the music for many of his most memorable films including City Lights. He's like a comedic Orson Welles, before he got fat. Its not just that Chaplin is funny. Plenty of people before and after him have been funny. Its how he harmonizes dramatic and comedic elements in his films; a mix of slapstick and profound romanticism. Its how the tramp's naive good intentions never seem to coalesce with the world he inhabits, yet he always manages to do alright in the end. More than alright in fact. He emerges victorious, always with that distinctly memorable grin on his face.
Chaplin's films are not just comedies. Often times they house within their frames an astonishingly timeless social critique. Modern Times poignantly showed a man pitted against a rigorously mechanical society that is unforgiving to the point of cruelty. In The Gold Rush he unveiled the shocking degree to which people allow themselves to be immoral in the pursuit of riches. City Lights is a hilarious farce that pokes fun at the lives of the rich while simultaneously exposing their mistreatment of the poor. As in most of his films, Chaplin juxtaposes his frail, clumsy and unappealing body with giants and beauties. He is pummeled in a wrestling ring, slapped around by men in tails, and patiently loved by a blind beauty. All the while he is getting himself mixed up in trouble with an “eccentric”, drunken millionaire who's polarized lifestyle of being a friendly drunk and a cold, sober aristocrat invites a myriad of occasions for the tramp to confuse the two. City Lights moves along at a frenzied pace, thanks only in part to the naturally fast paced cinematography of old films. The highly choreographed segments of many of the film's scenes are stunning, and its amazing to think how much of these stunts and acrobatics Chaplin and company did in the time before digital studio effects. Chaplin's dedication to laughable but nonetheless impressive choreography is one of many qualities that keeps City Lights delightfully entertaining every step of the way.
Chaplin's stage persona, the little tramp, is one of the most recognizable and memorable characters the silver screen has ever produced. Case in point: last month, as a means to pass the last few days at school, my dad (a middle school music teacher) showed his classes segments of Modern Times. He was shocked. The kids not only paid attention to the film (a rare occasion for any group of middle schoolers) but found themselves bursting out into laughter during many of the film's wilder moments. Conversely, an older friend told me of a disastrous experience trying to show Citizen Kane to the Freshman English class she teaches. Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles are certainly of comparable genius, but not of medium. Plenty of people want to have their emotions and thoughts prodded and provoked, but everyone wants to laugh.
Every so often an artist comes around who taps into something universal. If their body of work is focused enough they often come to represent something much larger than themselves. Chaplin is the original romantic comedian and that's why he's sexy. Few men in the last 100 years have been able to parade themselves about so foolishly and for so many people, and still be as appealing as Charlie Chaplin. It should be noted that in no way is Chaplin an idiot-savant. He knew how funny and how charming he was; his confidence is what made his films so successful. To this day no actor (with the possible exception of John Wayne) is more widely recognized for his unique appearance, remarkable stage presence and the quality of his films than that mustachioed tramp: Charlie Chaplin.
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